Break the Sky
by Liffae
Summary: One lesson Uzumaki Naruto taught the world was that glass ceilings are fragile, and limits are only for the fools who believe in them.
1. Mistaken Revelations

**Chapter One: Mistaken Revelations**

_All little girls should be told they are pretty  
Even if they aren't.  
-M Monroe_

* * *

The day starts off fine. Sarutobi is sitting at his desk, neglecting all the unimportant paperwork that he should be doing in theory but can leave to his secretaries in practice, when Naruto comes in the door.

It has been five years, and still he winces when he thinks that. He told Minato it'd be okay – not fine, but just okay – to name a _boy_ Naruto, but naming his baby _girl_ the same was taking things a bit far. He was tempted to change things on the fake certificate, but considering that her name was all she had left from her parents, he couldn't bring himself to take it, too, away from her.

Sarutobi notices her before she comes in the door, signals his ANBU guards away with a patterned flare of chakra, and slides his "reading material" in a drawer, locking it for good measure.

He really does not want the little kid getting a second look at his book. He doesn't want the kid to be perverted, or at least not because of him. The lovely and dangerous Kushina might be dead now, but he just _knows_ she'll find a way to hurt him if that happens. It is perhaps because of this line of reasoning that he is shocked, though admittedly he would have been shocked anyway.

"Jiji," his surrogate granddaughter says, "What's a pee-pee and why don't I have one?"

Sarutobi finds himself caught between laughing and crying for a moment. Then he drags a hand slowly down his face, takes his pipe out of his mouth, and tells Kushina, in his head, that this is not his fault. In any way. "Naruto," he says, "You're a girl, you don't have boy parts."

While he can no longer claim he's too young to talk to kids about this kind of thing, Sarutobi decides he _can_ say he's too old to give the Talk a fourth time. Once was really enough for a lifetime.

"Are you insulting me, Jiji?" Naruto exclaims.

Sarutobi cannot even bring himself to be surprised anymore. "What," he manages to say, "Do you mean by that?"

Naruto has the grace to look embarrassed at her incomprehensibility. "Well, I know being a girl isn't a bad thing, but all the other guys get mad when they're called girls so I have to get mad too." Or maybe she was embarrassed for some other reason and she's still as incomprehensible as ever.

"You… Why do you have to imitate the other guys?" Sarutobi is beginning to get an idea of what's going on but he can't for the life of him imagine why. "You're a girl, Naruto. You always have been."

Naruto looks confused, which is adorable, but Sarutobi can't even focus on her adorableness right now. His head is a mess and he needs some sleep and Icha Icha and Minato to be back here instead of him.

* * *

An hour later, Sarutobi has a vague idea of the disaster that happened here. When he deposited Naruto at the orphanage at the tender age of two, she lived in her steadily worsening dress for two months before a more sympathetic orphanage worker threw her an oversized T-shirt and a pair of cargo pants. After a particularly bad haircut (worsened by Naruto's fascination with all things metal and shiny and pointy and dangerous), she came out looking like a boy.

Sarutobi had actually somewhat watched that happen, but he didn't think it would be an issue.

Apparently, it _was_ an issue with the other girls, who proceeded to snub her as an icky boy. The boys mostly left her alone, too, especially because the caretakers didn't like the children playing with the 'demon child'. One boy, Akira, befriended her _because_ it wasn't 'allowed', and ended up bringing her into the 'boy group'.

And now, Naruto thinks she is a boy.

And apparently has thought so for the past three years.

* * *

When Naruto returns to the orphanage, she goes to find Akira. Akira and she are best friends, and because everybody likes Akira everybody likes her too. They talk about everything and play ball together, and even though Naruto is slim and a little taller and Akira is more muscular, they are evenly matched.

"Let's play," she says as soon as she bursts into the room. Akira is really touchy about people going into his room but he lets Naruto because they're best friends, so Naruto is really surprised to see Tomo in there too. "Oh, hi, Tomo," she adds, as an afterthought.

Akira looks pained. "I can't," he says. Tomo nods, wisely, from behind his back and Naruto wants to sucker punch him in the face.

"Why not?"

"Cuz you're a girl." She stares at him. "Matron said you're a girl and I can't play with you because girls aren't any fun-"

"But I'm fun!" Naruto shouts. "We have lots of fun together, you said so!"

He frowned. "I did not."

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

Matron's voice slams through the door before Akira can respond again. "Naruto! Girls aren't allowed in boys' rooms!"

Akira, maybe caught up in the argument, maybe angry that his best friend has deceived him, maybe too young to know better, maybe a thousand other reasons, sticks out his tongue. He shouts, "Yeah, that's right! Get out of here, Naruto! Nobody wants you here."

But Naruto doesn't know the mind of Akira. All she knows is her best friend betrayed her and doesn't want her and that she would never have betrayed him like that, even if he was a girl or the monster under her bed or the Kyuubi itself. Betrayal hurts but she doesn't cry there. Crying is weak and anyway, girls cry –and _oh, but she _is _a girl._ She runs fleet-footed back to her room and slams the door, and only then does she let the hot, angry tears seep out.

A little later, Matron comes and tells her to move to the girls' side of the rooms. Only there are more girls than boys and all the rooms are filled up, so for now she has to make do with a little closet and a cot.

She only hopes the girls will like her now, even if Akira said girls are icky, because what Akira said doesn't matter and he betrayed her and the room is small and smells like sewage and she wants to go back to before.

* * *

The girls do not like her. They are more obedient than the boys and Matron told them Naruto was a very bad child, always making trouble with that gang of bad boys. Plus, Naruto doesn't have any dolls, doesn't wear pink, and doesn't talk like them. The girls in the orphanage are all raised pink and cute and soft, in hopes of adoption, because good little girls are adopted and adoption means a better life, and Naruto doesn't seem to know this.

And anyway, a little while later Matron confides in Sakura, (her favorite, as all the girls know; a nice, polite girl with soft brown hair and beautiful blue eyes) that being friends with Naruto might hurt her chances of being adopted. And Sakura, who has a family looking into her, stops being nice to Naruto. Sakura, the leader and the nicest of them all, stops and tells the other girls (for the sake of friendship) that Naruto might hurt their chances of adoption, Matron said so, and nobody is nice to Naruto.

And maybe it is to rebel against them, against their pink and cute and soft, that Naruto does what she does. Maybe it was to rebel against flower arranging and tea pouring that she decides she wants to become a ninja.

So in the fifth year of her life, Naruto begs and pleads and finally Sarutobi enrolls her in the Academy, two years early. And after she begs and pleads and threatens to tell his secretary (a female ANBU, though Naruto doesn't know that) about his bad books, he agrees that she can leave the orphanage and he'll get her a nice apartment near the Academy (ostensibly to keep her safe and in the right part of town, because goodness knows little girls can't live on their own without ninja neighbors and a grocery just across the street and the Academy only one block away).

* * *

Naruto is a good student. In the orphanage, groups of ninja sometimes came to teach them how to read, and they were always nice and sometimes played Ninja with Akira and the boys after the lesson.

Naruto is a good student, and she loves the books they give her, with stories about great battles and adventures and pretty colored pictures. After the class has silent reading time, she goes up to the teacher.

"Sensei," she says, "What's chakra?" In the story, the First Hokage, the Shodaime, used something called chakra to move huge trees and defeat an enemy army all by himself. "Are we gonna learn to use it?"

Without looking up from his book, Takimoto says, "You'll learn all about it next year, when you have a little more to work with."

"What _is_ it?" Naruto persists, and Takimoto pushes up his glasses and looks up.

"Well, it's…" His voice suddenly trails off; his eyes widen; his lips thin. Naruto knows and recognizes the signs of anger. Well, it isn't really anger. Sometimes Matron gives her that look, too, half-pain and half-anger and just a little shame on top of it. Sensei swallows and says, "You don't need to know that." And it should hurt her, but it doesn't, not anymore. She is used to it by now.

Once, the nice lady Midori-san who gave her clothes had sat her down and told her: "Some people, like the Matron, have lost precious people. Matron's husband was a ninja and he was killed a couple years ago. Those people get bitter and sometimes they get angry."

Naruto didn't understand. Midori sighed, blew her bangs out of her eyes, and whispered, "When people are hurt, they just want to hurt others. So that they're not alone."

So Naruto smiles and nods and goes back to her seat. She sits quietly through the rest of the class, and then they split up into boys and girls – the boys to go learn 'civilian' sports and the girls go learn civilian girl things like flower-picking and sewing.

Takimoto watches them while they leave. Naruto is last, behind the file of girls who have been friends all their lives. She, like everybody else in the village, knows the great clans by sight. She sees the two textbook Hyuuga girls whispering together, several civilian-born girls giggling, and the Nara and Inuzuka girls arguing. She looks back and meets Takimoto's eyes. He gets up and closes the door, fast.

It slams with finality that echoes in the hall.

* * *

Naruto eats lunch alone. The Inuzuka is also alone, because the Nara went to eat with the Hyuuga. But after thirty minutes, the boys come from their class (soccer) to eat and the Inuzuka fits in with them. Naruto goes to join them, but she doesn't know how to invite herself in.

So she waits until their teacher comes to pick them up.

The Girl-Stuff teacher doesn't talk until they are in the second Academy training field, all seated on the clover-spotted grass.

She sits down with them, in front of them, facing them. "Hey there, munchkins," she says, grinning, "You're now with me, the great Nonoko-sensei, to learn about girl stuff. Do any of you know why you're here?"

The civilians shake their heads quietly. The Inuzuka, a girl with wild long hair who is wearing pants, not a dress, yawns and shouts, "Girl stuff is boring! Why can't we learn cool stuff like the boys?"

"We need to learn to act like normal girls so we can blend in," Nonoko says. "Many of you will be infiltrators one day, and you can't do that if all you know is how to be a ninja." The girls are all quiet, and perhaps she realizes that the topic is a bit too serious. "And hey, we're much more fun than the boys!" She leans in, conspiratorially, and stage-whispers, "We get to learn about chakra a bit early."

"Cool!" The Inuzuka yells.

"It's nothing, we're already learning about it in the Clan," one of the Hyuuga girls huffs.

Hesitantly, Naruto says, "Takimoto-sensei said we won't learn chakra until later."

Nonoko looks right at her, and Naruto is startled to see nothing in her eyes. Nonoko is smiling, kind. "Takimoto-sensei is a stuck-up old geezer, though you can't tell him I said that." Everyone giggles. "And he's a boy, so he doesn't get to know anything about the secret girl ninja training we do." She pauses and waves her hand in the air. "We were going to start with flower-picking, but I think it's a good idea to try to feel your chakra today."

"Mother said I can't do that yet," the other Hyuuga girl mumbles.

"Everybody's a little different," Nonoko says. "Anyway, it's a good idea to practice looking for it. The boys won't get started on it until about next year. We learn it first because we start out with more chakra than boys and our control of what we have develops a bit faster."

"Why?" Naruto asks, emboldened by Nonoko's earlier approval. "And what _is_ chakra?"

"Don't you know anything?" The Nara asks, looking away.

One of the five civilians, a brunette, looks up and says, "Isn't it magic?"

Nonoko laughs. "It's life energy. Well, it's actually a mix of your physical energy and spiritual energy, but since only living things have it, we also call it life energy. And, Blondie," she looks right at Naruto, "We have a bit more because us girls have a bit more life."

"What?" The Inuzuka looks confused. She turns to the Nara, "Tomo-chan, what does that mean?"

Tomo shakes her head. "Stupid, don't you know that children come from Moms?"

Nonoko laughs again, though Naruto can't understand why. "But we can't use a lot of it, because it's gotta stay in our systems in case if we have kids. Anyway, we're also blessed with better control. It's because we have more tenketsu points. Tenketsu points are the places in our body that chakra can come out from. Since we have more, it's easier to let littler amounts out." She turns to the Hyuuga girls. "You'll be able to see them when you activate your Byakugan."

"Hinata-sama already has hers," one blurts.

"She can only keep it for a couple seconds!" The other says, looking ready for an argument.

Nonoko whistles through her teeth. "That's impressive." The girls stop fighting. "Well, today I'll teach you some tricks on trying to call out your chakra. Probably none of you will manage yet, so you can sit here trying until you get bored and then go out and find me the ten prettiest flowers you can. Class ends at three o'clock, so you've got two hours. I expect beautiful flowers!"

Immediately several of them run off to the fields. The civilians all go. Nara Tomo pauses for a second, and then leaves. The Inuzuka calls after her, "Aren't you going to try to get your chakra?"

She looks back. "It's illogical," she says. "Father told me that without intensive training to accumulate physical and spiritual energy, hardly any people bring out their chakra before they are seven. Have you gone through that, Shuuka-chan, or are you claiming to be a prodigy child like the Copy Ninja?"

Tomo sounds like an adult. The remaining clan children all waver and then run off.

But Naruto stays.

"I didn't even tell them how to reach for their chakra yet," Nonoko says in the silence, sounding amused. She stands up, walks over to where Naruto is sitting, and lays down beside her on her belly. "Do you still want to learn?"

"Yes," Naruto says, a little shy, now that she's alone with the teacher.

Nonoko smiles. "You don't sound very excited."

"Yes!" Naruto says, a little louder.

Nonoko laughs. "Good, good," she says. "Okay, well, reaching for your chakra is easy, but everybody has a different way of doing it. I'll teach you the way that worked for me, and then we'll practice it, and when, no, _if_ it doesn't work, then we'll try a different one." Naruto nods. "Hold out your hand. Now close your eyes and imagine all the color in the world gathering in a ball in your hand." She props herself up on her elbows and demonstrates, holding out a hand and closing her eyes.

Naruto closes her eyes. "All the colors in the world," she says softly. "The whole universe."

She concentrates fiercely, trying to pull it in. Something burns along her arm and something tingles on her spine and something hurts like crying in the back of her throat. There is a ball of color in her hand, and it is warm and cold and beautiful and ugly and life and death and everything at once and nothing at all.

She feels like she can do anything.

Naruto can feel Nonoko shift and suck in a breath. She can taste the blue sky. She can hear the colors in her, all around her. She didn't know that there were so many colors in her body, so many things she could do.

"By the Great Sage," Nonoko whispers. And Naruto opens her eyes.

There is a ball of color in her hand, and it is blue like the sky, blue like her eyes, blue like freedom. She turns to Nonoko-sensei, and the ball fades with her concentration. Her hand feels heavy and light and a little tired. "Was that chakra?" She asks, and her voice is filled with wonder. "Was that it?"

In response, Nonoko holds up her own hand. A little ball of chakra –littler than Naruto's – forms at her palm. "This is chakra. This is my chakra," she says, voice cracking. "But yours was something amazing. Yours was just amazing. Oh, the Great Sage, yours was amazing."

Naruto doesn't know what to say, so she puts her hand down and feels blood rush into it.

Nonoko sits for a while before she talks again, voice shaky. "Do you know what this means, Naruto? Do you know what this is?"

Naruto shakes her head. "No, Sensei?"

"All my life, I have been overlooked and disadvantaged and disregarded for having small chakra reserves and an agile but not powerful physique. Though women have an advantage in control, it's much easier to improve control than to improve chakra capacity. In the world of ninja, men have every advantage. And when I was a little girl, in Kumo," her voice choked up, "after my mother died on a mission, my father belittled me and tried to take me off the ninja course. Women ninja are unnecessary, he said, and you're going to get yourself killed."

Naruto looks away from her teacher, uncomfortable with her distress.

"The most famous Kunoichi in history is Tsunade of the Sannin of Konoha, and she is famous for being a wonderful medic Nin with perfect control." Nonoko's voice rises and Naruto turns back to her. "Don't you see? Naruto, you can turn the gender bias on its head! You are only one girl, but with precedence for early chakra training in girls, we can lead the ninja world!"

Naruto does understand. _This is Nonoko-sensei's pain, _she knows. _But instead of trying to hurt others, she's trying to help people like her. _"I get it," she says, and louder, "I understand."

Nonoko's excitement is palpable now, and contagious. "Okay, what to start with?" She muses aloud. "Tree walking is definitely a little too dangerous…" She snaps her fingers, suddenly. "I got it! Okay, so chakra has a couple of basic properties. There's elemental chakra too, which has totally different qualities but basic chakra takes whatever shape you want it to, dispels in the air, and attracts. So when you coat your hand with chakra and stick it to the ground," Nonoko layers her hand with a thin screen of blue chakra and puts it to the grass, "and bring your hand up, the ground sticks to it." A clump of dirt comes away, attached to her hand.

Naruto closes her eyes and thinks. "All the colors in the world," she whispers, "like a glove."

Again, the world rushes around her. This time, she focuses enough to feel it – _a form of color next to her, which has to be Nonoko-sensei. Thousands of blades, alive, and towers around her with branches coming out of them. They are color and life and everything._

She loses concentration. Naruto opens her eyes to look up at Nonoko. "Is something wrong?" Her teacher asks.

"Um," Naruto stopped, not sure how to explain it. "I felt something." At Nonoko's encouraging nod, she continues. "You were color, and the grass and the trees and the birds were all color and life."

"Ah, when I was little and reached my chakra for the first time, I felt it too. It's because when you're young and you first reach for chakra, you're more sensitive to chakra, because you've never felt it before. Over time it fades, but many of us Kunoichi train ourselves to keep looking for it. We have more Tenketsu to detect the chakra through, so it's a bit easier for us than for boys. You know…"

"Teacher!" "Nonoko-sensei!" Two of the civilian children come running out of the woods. "I found the ten prettiest flowers _ever_, teacher!"

Nonoko takes the flowers and examines them, smiling. She makes no move to talk about Naruto's chakra, and for that, Naruto is grateful. Maybe knowing how different she is would set her even further apart from the class, and she wouldn't want that.

With a smile and wave, she runs off to find flowers herself.

* * *

Every day, Naruto wakes up at 7:30 and goes outside. One of her quiet neighbors always leaves a small piece of bread for breakfast and a small packed lunch. Though Naruto doesn't know it, a female ANBU makes her lunch every day and leaves it at her door at the request of the Hokage.

She eats and runs to the Academy, getting there early to read the books, which are fun and amusing even if they don't have very many words. Takimoto-sensei is always perfunctorily nice. During class they study languages, math, and history, and then they split up into boys and girls and the girls go have lunch.

The boys arrive to lunch after the girls leave and she and the rest of the girls follow Nonoko-sensei to one of the Academy's seven training fields. Naruto becomes acquaintances with Nara Tomo and friends with Inuzuka Shuuka. When class lets out at 3, Naruto pretends to leave but idles at the Academy gate until Nonoko picks her up.

They go to different places every day – after Nonoko realizes that many stores don't accept Naruto, they most often return to the Academy grounds or go to Nonoko's apartment complex. Nonoko teaches Naruto for a while, and then Naruto goes back home.

In her lonely, empty apartment, Naruto does nothing but practice what she is taught. She puts her hand against the wall and sticks it, testing it by leaning back. Sometimes she falls and bumps her head and sometimes her hand is forced away, like the wrong ends of two magnets were put together. She practices with her feet, which is much harder, trying to stick herself to the floor so she can't take a step.

At around seven, there is a knock on her door and dinner is dropped off. She eats in the uncomfortable silence, amusing herself by practicing sticking to the disposable wooden chopsticks, or picking up her food with chakra and one finger.

When other children are busy talking and playing and doing things with their families, Naruto has nothing but a minimalist room and her chakra.

* * *

Nonoko takes another swig of the sake. "It's kind of depressing," she admits to her longtime drinking partner and best friend, Yuuki. "She's some kind of sick genius. She picks up everything in a day or two. I would have to do nothing but practice with my chakra to pick up manipulation techniques so fast, and as I was I was the fastest in my class back in Kumo."

"You're a good teacher," Yuuki says, smiling.

"She can revolutionize the whole world of ninja," Nonoko says. "With that kind of chakra, she can go to the top of the world. Maybe even get a flee-on-sight order like the Yondaime." She gulped down another burning sip of sake. "But I'm rambling."

Yuuki laughed. "It's okay. Who did you say was your student, again?"

Nonoko puts down her cup and considers her best friend. "I know there's a bit of a stigma against her," she says. "And I know it has to do with the Kyuubi." She watches Yuuki's eyes narrow. "Her name is Uzumaki Naruto, and contrary to what I've heard she's an agreeable and very cute little girl."

Yuuki hesitates, considering her words. "You... may want to be careful," she says finally. "Several people in this village despise her. Though most orphans live terrible lives anyway, especially in the financial aftermath of the Kyuubi attack, she's lived a worse life than most. The people who don't hate her don't care for her."

"Then that's all the more reason for me to help her!" Nonoko yells. The couple seated at the next table turn to stare, so she lowers her voice. "Are you listening to me? This girl's got talent and dedication. She's going places."

Yuuki stares at her best friend for several moments. "I'm not arguing with that," she says, in a low voice. "I'm just worried for you. There are some people who hate her. Who hate her enough to hurt her, and to hurt people who help her."

Nonoko smiles. "It's sweet that you're worried, Yuuki-chi. But I'm a ninja, you know? I'm more than capable of taking care of myself."

"It's not just civilians. There are lots of ninjas who lost family to the Kyuubi. Ninjas hate her too. I wouldn't be surprised if the administration disliked her."

"What do you mean?" Nonoko gapes. She lowers her voice to a whisper. "The Hokage himself turned in the forms for her registration at the Academy. Nobody else could overwrite the age limit law, anyway. The teachers were in an uproar about it for weeks!"

Yuuki leans in. "If the Hokage was really partial to her," she whispers, "She wouldn't have been left with all the other children in that ratty orphanage, right? And I hear that she, in particular, was so ratty and grimy, nobody could tell if she was a girl or a boy!"

The more Nonoko thinks about it, the more sense it makes. With that kind of talent, if the Hokage were _really_ interested in Naruto, he would notice.

"Anyway," Yuuki continues, "You're from Kumo, and pretty new to the village anyway. There's already a bias against you. You don't want to make things worse for yourself by associating with her, right?"

_No, I don't_, Nonoko thinks. She still remembers the incredible hostility everybody treated her with when she first arrived as a runaway from Kumo. In retrospect, it was only prudent of them to be suspicious of refugees arriving in Konoha so soon after the Kyuubi attack. She had barely gotten her Chuunin-level teaching license, even though she'd been ready for the Jounin exam before what had happened in Kumo.

"But I can't just leave her," she whispers, reluctantly. "I mean, she's my closest student. She's not even just a student." Nonoko sighs. "You'd know if you met her. She's got a certain charm, along with all that skill. A charisma."

Yuuki frowns, brows furrowing. "Go to sleep and think about it. That girl is dangerous, mark my words, you don't want to get messed up with her." She empties her sake cup in one swing. "I'm telling you, Noko, you're going to regret this."

Regret? Regret hadn't crossed her mind. But Nonoko finds herself starting to doubt for the first time.

Maybe Naruto's amazing concentration and skill with chakra is not a miracle, but an omen.

* * *

"Time's up," Takimoto calls. Only then does Naruto walk up with her test paper in hand. She lays it flat on her palm, using chakra to stick it to her hand, and as usual, in the rush of students, nobody notices her strange way of holding the paper.

When she first tried this, the paper shredded and ripped with her chakra. Now, even under the pressure of knowing she can't redo the test, the sticking exercise works perfectly.

Class is a fun challenge every day. Naruto knows she's in the lower ranges of the class, but the other kids are all bigger and older than she is, and she feels like she's learning a lot.

As usual, she eats lunch next to Nara Tomo and Inuzuka Shuuka. They're not great friends, but they stick together at lunch so none of them are alone. After the boys arrive, Shuuka runs off to play ball with them.

"Are you going to go?" Tomo asks quietly. Naruto is startled. Every time Shuuka goes, she thinks about leaving to play, but then she remembers Akira and the boys she used to run around with. It hurts a little, so she stays.

But she doesn't say any of that. "No."

Tomo nods and fishes out some candy from her pocket. "You can't tell Shuuka-chan, okay?" She whispers. "I only brought two this time, and it's her fault for leaving us for the boys." Naruto laughs and eats the peppermint candy.

She wants to tell Tomo that this is special for her, that she doesn't get candy very often, that Tomo is her friend. But the words don't form themselves. "Thanks," is all she manages to say.

"Mhmm," Tomo hums, smiling.

"Girls! It's time for class!" Nonoko's voice rings out in the Academy courtyard. Naruto gets out of her chair for the mad dash to be first to Nonoko, but this time, she waits for Tomo before setting off running.

They arrive at Nonoko at almost the same time, moments before two civilian children and a worn-out Shuuka.

"I don't know why you insist on playing with them when you can only play for a couple of seconds," Tomo whispers. "It's right after lunch, too. And you always get dirty and worn out right before class starts."

"It's fun," Shuuka says, panting. "My cousin's a great kicker. And the guys are a lot of fun." That's all she says.

Naruto hears the tense undercurrent. She knows that Tomo is angry about something, and Shuuka is only fanning the flames. The candy, she thinks, might be Tomo's offer to get Naruto on her side. She's seen the taking sides strategy happen with other children, but it's never happened to her. She's never been close friends with more than one person, and it was always assumed that she was on Akira's side.

She smiles a little. It's a pleasant feeling, having friends.

Today, Nonoko teaches them about how to talk about clothes. For the civilian girls, no instruction is necessary. Nonoko shows them all a shirt and the girls go off critiquing the color, cut, and style of it.

"My sister says loose cut shirts make you look fatter," one announces. "She told me if I ever wore one she'd disown me."

"You're so wrong!" Another exclaims. "It depends on the cut of the loose shirt. This one's got a nice cut, and it makes you look skinnier! See how it dangles at the right places?"

The clan-born girls and Naruto sit silently, bemused by the commotion. Nonoko turns to them. "Don't you girls have anything to say? You've been awfully quiet, and this is the tenth piece I've shown."

One of the Hyuuga girls - Naruto can't tell which one, even after all this time; they both look so alike - says, "We're not allowed to wear non-clan styles. Clothing doesn't matter much to a ninja, as long as you can fight."

"If you're stuck infiltrating an enemy nation with Hyuuga wear, you're doomed," Nonoko explains patiently.

"Hyuuga don't have to infiltrate. Our eyes are too valuable and conspicuous to give up to the enemy. Our bloodline is suited for battle more than cowardly things like spying."

Nonoko shakes her head. "Listen, kiddo, everything I teach you has a reason. And everything you learn can and will eventually help you. You may not understand how yet, but later you'll regret your pride. Pride only makes you weak." Realizing how harsh the atmosphere is, she turns to the other girls. "Do any of you have anything to say?"

When it's obvious Tomo and Shuuka are reticent, Naruto proffers, "It's a nice color."

* * *

The Sandaime's rage is palpable. Panther and Gull flinch back a little, unwilling to raise their own chakra to ease the Killing Intent. That might be seen as insubordination, and they're in enough trouble as it is.

"You fools," Sarutobi says again. "Why didn't you report this to me?" He slams the paperweight down on his desk, and the desk trembles. "I told you to report anything and everything suspicious!"

Panther gulps. "With all due respect, sir," she manages, "all the Academy teachers have been thoroughly vetted. The clans wouldn't stand for anything else."

"Are you suggesting, Panther, that not only do I have two incompetent ANBU, but I also have an incompetent Intelligence Department?" Sarutobi raises his chakra again. "Kurosaki Nonoko moved into Konoha only four years ago, from _Kumo_ of all places. She was only accepted because of our need for active ninja. It says _here,_" he slams a hand into the file on his desk, "that she pulled some ridiculous sob story about an abusive father to garner sympathy. And now, she is trying to get close to the jinchuuriki of Kyuubi, a girl who is arguably among the ranks of the most powerful people alive. _What does this look like to you?_"

Panther bows her head. "Yes, sir, you're right, Hokage-sama."

"Bring the girl to Ibiki before the sun sets."

* * *

After class, Naruto waits at the gate of the Academy. After a while, she sits down, resting her back against the wall. Nonoko is later than usual, but after the lights have dimmed down and even Takimoto has left, she arrives with arms full of books.

She sets them down on the ground beside Naruto and sits down. Perplexed, Naruto asks, "What's wrong, Nonoko-sensei? Are we going to have a lesson today?"

"Nothing's wrong," Nonoko replies automatically. Then she corrects herself. "No, there is something. Naruto-chan, I want you to know something." She leans in, and Naruto does, too. Nonoko whispers, as softly as possible, "The administration might be against you. Do you know what administration is?" Naruto shook her head a little. "That's the Hokage and the people with animal masks."

Nonoko leans back a little to watch Naruto's face. She wants Naruto to understand the importance of this. "But the Old Man's always been nice to me," Naruto says, faltering.

"Sometimes people put on masks," Nonoko says. "And if the Hokage did want to help you, he wouldn't have left you in the orphanage so long. He has absolute power in this village, after all. It's very dangerous. Naruto, if someday I disappear – if I'm not teaching or at my apartment, you need to run away. You need to go as far and fast as possible."

"Leave Konoha?" Naruto asks, startled.

"No, you can't leave Konoha. It would be too hard to get around the gate sentries and the Wall. But there are places in Konoha where the sun doesn't shine; do you know what I'm saying? There are places where the law is not enforced by ninja. Konoha is a huge city, and though the red light district is not a safe place for little girls, it's safer than having trained ninja after you."

Frightened, Naruto nods. "Ninja are dangerous. Okay, Nonoko-sensei."

Nonoko leans back and takes a couple books from her stack. "Now, one of the administrators asked me to run this to the Tower." She smiles, softly. "We can't have a lesson today, but I'll see you tomorrow."

Naruto nods. "See you tomorrow, Nonoko-sensei."

* * *

Naruto feels a sinking feeling in her stomach.

"You can call me Minai-sensei. I will be taking the place of Nonoko-sensei in teaching you girls. Would somebody please tell me what you've been taught so far?" The new lady, a blonde with a crisp bun and beautiful hazel eyes, smiles down at them.

The girls shift with unease. Nonoko was fun, and sat down with them, and talked to them like they were all friends. Minai-sensei doesn't seem to be anything like her. "Where's Nonoko-sensei? Is she coming back soon?" Shuuka blurts.

"Nonoko-sensei has taken a sick leave." Minai's smile fades. "I didn't want to tell you girls this, but she's been diagnosed with a disease. It's highly contagious, and she doesn't want to affect any of you, so she's taken a leave."

"Nonoko-sensei didn't look sick yesterday," Naruto says. "And that means she's coming back when she's better, right?"

Minai's eyes are hard when she looks at Naruto. Naruto knows the answer almost before she opens her mouth, so she doesn't wait. She turns and runs for the gate as fast as she can. "Naruto, where are you going?" Tomo yells from behind her, but Naruto just keeps sprinting.

_You need to run away. You need to go as fast and far as possible._

* * *

The Hokage leans back in his chair. Minai-chan seems to be handling the children well, for now. He switches the crystal ball to a view of the Intelligence Headquarters, where Ibiki is having a 'civilized' conversation with the teacher. Results so far are inconclusive, or so it appears.

The crystal ball is one of those wonderful Hokage perks not offered to anybody not wearing the hat. It has a variety of uses, many of which ensure that Sarutobi will never hand the hat down to Jiraiya, but also several downfalls. The ball has a temporal delay of about five minutes. And, contrary to its name, it is not an All-Seeing ball. Sarutobi can only focus it on places he knows intimately or chakra signatures he can feel. A chakra sensor would probably make better use of the ball, but it's a powerful tool and not to be given to any random Kunoichi who's spent her whole life learning how to sense chakra.

After watching the proceedings for a little while, he decides that enough is enough and Ibiki will hand him the results whenever they're ready.

Sarutobi spends another long while marking down paperwork and reviewing trade agreements and the like. Though his administration department has extensive checks and balances that run through all the paperwork before it gets to him, he still has to verify everything important. It's a pain in the neck.

Five or six packets later, he turns the crystal ball to the Academy's training ground three. Minai-chan's blonde hair sticks out from all the rest of the children. Sarutobi turns, almost moving on before he realizes what's wrong.

Naruto is gone.

* * *

Naruto has never been down this street before. The buildings are a little dirty, but very brightly painted. The women, some of which sit on the doorsteps in ornate clothes with heavily made-up faces, breathe foul-smelling smoke into the air. Noise wafts from putrid shops. A tall building with brightly flashing lights proclaims itself "Konohagakure Casino! Discover your fortunes today!"

She realizes she's the only child here, though she supposes that is because everybody else is in school. Naruto glances around and sees no ninja, so she slows to a walk. She is staring at the ground trying not to step in anything unsavory when a dirty hand grabs her arm.

"What are ye doing here, li'le gal?" The man who speaks to her is missing a couple of teeth; his face is stained with mud and weather, dotted with moles, and lined with wrinkles. "Come an' stay wit ol' me, eh?"

"Let go of me," Naruto says. "You're dirty."

His face contorts. "Wha' did ye say? Ye filthy li'le whore-girl! I'll show ye!" He raises a hand and Naruto cowers, frightened, when a voice stops him.

"What are you doing, you old beggar? That girl is a maid for my establishment, and if you don't unhand her Mother Tessa will be down on you." His hand goes down and he releases Naruto, smiling feebly.

"Nothing, nothing, honorable consort miss. I was just-a asking for some money. Didn't mean to displease Miss Mae none. I is just gonna be going now, thank you very kind, ma'am." He hobbles off, much faster than Naruto thought possible.

She turns to face her savior, a beautiful woman in splendid clothing. Her hair is up in elaborate knots and her face lightly painted in pastel colors. The light smile on her face fades as she considers Naruto. "Who are you? What are you doing here, girl? This isn't the right part of town for little girls, no matter what I just said."

Naruto stutters a little. "I'm, I'm Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto. I'm in danger. I have to run. Far away. They took Nonoko-sensei, and now they're going to take me and I have to hide and…"

Mae shushes her. "This street isn't any place for any kind of story. No place is place for a story. If you want to live in a place like this, don't tell anybody anything. It'll only hurt you in the end." She considers Naruto again. "Well, I suppose you should come with me. You look fast enough, and you'll be a hard worker if you know what's good for you. Maybe Mother Tessa will want a runner girl; goodness knows we can use one."

"Thank you," Naruto says, "Thank you, thank you."

"You don't have anything to thank me for."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Thanks to she who flies, my lovely beta.

03.08.13 Minor Edits (Grammar)  
04.11.13 Minor Edit (Typo)

_Liffae ^-~_


	2. Fate's Apologies

**Chapter Two: Fate's Apologies**

_I'm just a girl, what's my destiny?  
what I've succumbed to is making me numb  
I'm just a girl, my apologies  
what I've become is so burdensome  
-G. Stefani & T. Dumont_

* * *

"Ruto-chan!" The call comes from her left, and Naruto tiredly picks up her body from its resting position against the wall and jogs down the hallway. "Ruto-chan, come take the laundry to the cleaners," Mae says as soon as Naruto bursts in through the door. "And Saeki-chan wants you, too."

Naruto takes the sheets, which are stained with sweat and things she doesn't want to think about, folds them up wordlessly so all that's showing is clean, and heads out the door. "Stop by after you're done," Mae calls after her, more softly. "I don't have any customers for a while, so we can sit and rest on a bed, m'kay?" It's Mae's kind of mercy, Naruto knows, and she's grateful for it.

"Okay," she agrees. And then she runs next door. Saeki is sitting, knees drawn up to her chest as usual, on the elaborate bedspread. "Saeki-san, do you want some coffee like usual?"

Saeki glances up, for a moment unguarded and empty. Then her face fills with a smile, transforming the sad lines etched in her skin to happy ones, bright and overwhelming and beautiful.

And fake.

"That would be lovely, dear," she says. "Add an extra sugar today, okay?" And Naruto knows it's a bad day already for Saeki, to need that extra sugar, though it's not evening yet and in the evening at the House, things only get worse.

Coffee is a couple doors over at the salon. She'll have to go out of the House, then, because the House only has tea.

Naruto was almost seven when she got here, and they didn't send her around on the streets – she didn't want to go either, because Nonoko had told her to hide and where better than the House, where even things like real names and your story are kept secret? It's been a year, and she feels safer and knows more, so she runs errands now.

Since she has to go out, Naruto stops by the other rooms on her way to the door. The girls are all mostly getting ready for the evening, and some of them are out shopping or at the salon. Tasha has some clothes to run down, and Naruto takes that and a basket to hold the laundry in. There will be more in the morning, after the night, but Naruto can't carry more than two rooms' worth of laundry anyway.

She runs out the door, basket between her right arm and hip. The street is mostly empty under the scorching Konoha sun, and the very air seems to waver in the heat of the day. The cleaners are only a block away, but it feels like miles. Her feet already blister in her 'pretty' little shoes.

Naruto can't wait until night, when the red lanterns light up the street and the foggy air and the whole sky turns crimson, when the older sisters go to work and she goes to sleep.

The cleaner is dozing behind the desk, eyes closed. The only sign that he is awake is his hand, which fans his face lethargically with a rice paper fan. Naruto puts the basket on the ground and turns the handle. Holding the door open with her foot, she bends down to pick up the basket and walks in, staggering.

The bell attached to the door tinkles, and the man wakes up. He startles for a moment, looking out over Naruto's head, but his sight shifts downward and he sees her. "Ah! You'll be Velvet's girl, right?" Naruto nods affirmation, and he hums. "What's your name? Oh, you can put the basket right on the floor, darling. Ruto…Rutoshi-chan, right?"

Naruto nods again. In the Velvet House, where even names are secret, she goes by a fake name. It is close to her real name, because all the girls started calling her nicknames for her real name before they got together and formally made up a stage name for her.

Naruto drops the basket to the floor. The man is still fanning himself, looking dazed, so Naruto prompts, "Regular clean, please." He looks up, eases out of his chair, and walks over.

"It's damn hot," he mutters, ruffling through the bed sheets. "A right damn hot day. I'll be having it done in a jiffy. You wanna stay or pick it up in, say, fifteen minutes?" He dumps them from Naruto's basket to one of his own.

"I'm going to get coffee for Saeki-san," Naruto says, just like Mae taught her. Using 'going to' instead of 'have to' to sound happy and not lazy, and adding a respectful honorific even though things like politeness don't go far at the House, unless it's a persona.

"You're a right good girl," the man says. "If only my daughter was like you." He frowns after saying it, as if suddenly the thought of his daughter working in a whorehouse disturbs him. But it passes and he is smiling again because, then again, in the red light district the Velvet House is a very respectable establishment indeed. He ruffles the sheets again, and then nudges Naruto's basket toward her. "I'll just be charging the pay to Velvet. You're right regular customers, anyhow. The boss shouldn't mind."

Naruto nods again. "She usually comes around to collect every month or so." Aya-san is usually manning the desk when Naruto comes, though some days it's this man, who is altogether forgetful and not very talkative.

She stands there for another awkward moment before he shakes himself and waves a hand at her. "Run along now, you got coffee to fetch for that nice lady, eh?" Naruto turns on her heel and walks out of the shop just like Saeki taught her, quietly, on the balls of her feet, ready to start running at any moment. And as soon as she is out the door, she is sprinting toward the cool air of the coffee shop, skirts gathered in hands, hair flying askew toward the sky.

* * *

An hour later and two round trips from the coffee shop to the House to the cleaner and back to the House again, Naruto collapses on Mae's bed. She loves Mae's bed. The girls have raised beds, with plump mattresses and curtains and velvet spreads, but Naruto and the other live-in helpers have normal futons, which are not nearly as soft or luxurious.

Mae laughs softly, looking up from her tea. "All done, Ruto-chan?"

"Yeah," Naruto grunts.

"Mind your speaking!" Mae scolds, softly. Naruto looks up and realizes that Mae is already in House mode. Her face is done, her clothes are the shiny, gaudy House clothing, and she is drinking tea. Most of the girls prefer coffee, but the Velvet House insists on tea when the guests come, because it's more 'elegant'.

"Yes, I am finished," Naruto repeats in a mockingly dainty voice. Mae sighs a little, but Naruto knows she isn't angry. Or even if she is, she won't show it now, not with her House face on. When Mae just continues sipping delicately at her tea, Naruto turns her head back up to stare at the intricate details of Mae's bed curtains.

When Mae speaks again, her voice is soft and affectionate, and it hits harder than anger would have. "You know, a mask will save your life someday. And until then, you'll have to watch carefully to see what other people do so that when the time comes, you have the right mask for the saving."

Sometimes, Naruto is hit by how, even though it's annoying and painful and a lot of work, everything Mae and Saeki and some of the other girls teach her is taught out of love.

She sits up, even though her back aches, and manages a soft smile. She folds her legs under her bottom and rests her hands gently on her lap. "Yes, Mae-san. I understand perfectly," Naruto says in the Capitol accent she took great pains to learn.

Mae smiles and puts down her tea cup. She pushes back the chair without a noise and walks over soundlessly to where Naruto is. "Better," she acknowledges. "How old are you now, Ruto-chan?"

"I will be ten years old next Thursday," Naruto replies promptly, drawing up a random date and building a face and a voice and a persona as she speaks, just like Mae has been teaching her. She selects the noble's daughter, with the Capitol accent and the composed face, which she and Mae have been perfecting for the past month.

"Look me in the eyes, Ruto-chan. Don't twist your hands like that. Remember, you're not lying. You're never lying. You are just telling them somebody else's truth." Mae sighs. "Don't you remember who you are? You are not Rutoshi of the House. You are not the girl you were. You are a noble's daughter, and you are talking to a woman who is beneath you in social class. Now, again, when is your birthday, dear?"

Naruto bites her lip and settles her hands. She looks up, and smiles a smile like she doesn't want to be smiling. "July 22nd," she says into Mae's eyes.

"Good," Mae says, and sits down on the bed beside Naruto. "Remember how that felt." She waits for Naruto's nod before she continues, "Today, you're a bit late. We've only got half an hour, and Saeki-chan needs to sleep. So today's not a lesson, per se, but rather, a gift."

"A gift?" Naruto echoes.

Mae nods. "I am going to give you something that might someday save your life."

Naruto waits for Mae to go on, but she doesn't. "What is it?" She asks, dutifully.

Mae smiles. "I'll show you," she says, and they walk over to her window. Mae leans over the window, reaches under the ledge, and draws out a little bag. "These are seeds of the Yin tree, and they grow in soil or on chakra. One day, when your blood rises with the moon, you will use this. If not for this plant, no woman would be able to become a ninja. Our bleeding is just too disadvantageous, in terms of scent and the cramps it gives us, though it's different for every woman."

"So it's like a medicine?" Naruto asks.

"Like a miracle medicine," Mae asserts, "Watch." She tips the bag into her hand; a couple of little seeds fall out, and she returns all but one to the bag. Placing the seed at the center of her palm, she concentrates chakra into the seed, so much that her chakra becomes visible wisps of blue life energy, that Naruto can feel the chakra without even closing her eyes and trying, that the seed grows visibly hot in her hand.

The seed seems to expand slightly, and then it cracks along the side. A little green shoot peeps out of it, growing at an unnatural speed. Pale white blossoms from the opposite side, becoming tangled roots, and the shell cracks away. Wrapped with chakra, the green shoot branches off into three more, which thin out as they get longer and eventually end in a little bud. As Naruto watches, the palm-size, leafless tree becomes greener, and then browner. When they are a shade of brown as dark as chocolate, Mae cuts off her chakra flow and the glow fades from the hardened plant.

"They grow so fast because chakra, as life energy, stimulates their growth." Mae explains. She hands the dried and dead plant to Naruto. "They also die faster. Chakra is a boon and a curse."

Naruto holds the tree. "Does this mean you could make a normal tree grow and die this fast, too?"

Mae frowns. "Theoretically. It would take more chakra than most people have. The Yin tree is a miniature tree and has a lifespan of about nine months. It produces three seeds – go ahead and peel them out." Naruto fumbles a little, and then digs her nails into the pod at the end of one of the three branches, managing to pry away the crackled skin from the seed, which is a curious silver color. "A normal tree can live for centuries, and you'd have to feed a ridiculous amount of chakra into it. Some men with huge chakra reserves do feed a little chakra into a tree every day for all its life, which ends up giving it special properties."

"Does this have special properties, then?" Naruto asks. The pod breaks off from the stem in her hand and she struggles to scrape away the little bits of bark left around the seed.

"The original dirt-grown Yin tree only lightens the monthly blood. Chakra-fed Yin tree seeds stop the blood and prevent a child from growing inside you. Or at least, that's what my mother told me," Mae says, shrugging. "You'll have to eat one seed every month, but don't eat it until after your first blood, or you might hinder the development of your body."

Naruto peels the second seed. "So… if you put chakra into a person, would that make them grow faster and die?"

Mae hesitates. "Well, if your chakra type was exactly the same, I suppose so. It would be really hard to insert chakra into a person, though. We can do it with trees and plants because they have neutral natural chakra. Clans like the Hyuuga spend their whole lives mastering the technique of inserting their chakra into other systems, which stops chakra flow and could theoretically kill, and they can only do it because they can see tenketsu, the pores that chakra enters and exits from."

Naruto is caught up in a memory of two white-eyed, dark-haired girls, a quiet but intense Tomo, and the rambunctious Shuuka. But it passes just as quickly as it comes. After all this time, even the thought of Nonoko no longer makes her cry.

"Medics have techniques to switch their chakra to natural chakra so they can heal people," Mae adds. "You'll probably end up learning some, because they expect all girls to become infiltrators, whores, or medics. But, Ruto-chan, listen to me. You're worth more than what they say."

_She doesn't want me to stay here, _Naruto remembers. She frowns, slightly. Mae must see the furrow in her brow, because she keeps talking.

"You know I was a Kunoichi before. And then, at one point, I decided being a whore was better than being a whore who also murdered. There's no rest in the world of ninjas, and the pay is bad for the price of your soul. The House, at least, holds no illusions about what it is. Shinobi call themselves noble, but they are just glorified killers."

"I don't want to be a ninja," Naruto admits quietly. She looks up, thinking that Mae, who always rants about ninja, will agree with her.

But Mae's tranquil House mask seems to shatter. "Then what do you want to be?" She asks, in her cold, angry voice. "Do you want to stay here until you turn a legal age and let Mother Tessa sell your virginity to the highest bidder? Do you know the reason why you're wearing finer cotton right now is so, as you go around, you're displaying yourself to the patrons? Do you intend to stay in a whorehouse all your life? Do you want to be a whore?"

"But you said Kunoichi are murderers _and _whores!" Naruto cries. "Isn't that even worse, Mae-san?"

Mae stares at her for a moment. "Do you really think I would tell you this if I thought you couldn't be better? The strong have no such limits – they don't need to kill, or sell their bodies – and you, my dear, are nothing if not strong." She bends down so they are at eye level. "Ruto-chan, you are already more talented than I ever was. You have the chakra, you have the strength, you have the control. You're smart and skilled but if I didn't know better, I'd swear you were a coward."

Naruto swallows. "Are you telling me to leave?" She asks, and her voice is small. Mae's face softens, her eyes crinkled again, and her cherry-red lips tilt up in a semblance of a smile.

"I'm telling you there's a whole world out there, and nothing stopping you from going out and conquering it. I'm telling you because I love you." Mae straightens back up and tugs on her skirt to smooth it. "And besides," she winks, "I don't trust those stupid men to protect me, yeah?"

For some reason, Naruto laughs. And then they're both laughing.

And Naruto swears to herself that she will become a wonderful Kunoichi – no, the best Ninja that ever lived, if only for Mae. For Mae and Saeki and Nonoko, she will conquer the world and hold it safe in her hands. Someday.

* * *

Sarutobi sighs as he turns to the thin stack of files. He never thought there would be a day he'd wish for more paperwork, but here he is, wishing.

When Naruto ran from Minai, and Minai, thinking that the ANBU guards would take care of it, didn't chase after her, Sarutobi was at his desk filing paperwork and Ibiki was holding a meeting with the guards. In the confused aftermath, during which he sent out innumerable tracking ninja and forced many of his subordinates to work overtime, Sarutobi even brought in a young Genjutsu Mistress – some Chuunin named Yuuhi Kurenai – who had felt Naruto's chakra before, to use the All-Seeing ball.

The papers accumulate every week, from the lower administrative offices. A year after Naruto was kidnapped, Sarutobi carefully vetted two paper-pushers to sort the outside intelligence into files that reported things to do with Naruto, files of international importance, and regular reports.

Since a third party, most likely shinobi from Kumo, snatched Naruto away after she ran from Minai, Konoha sent out a massive wave of trackers to try to find her. And in the year after that, an overwhelming flood of infiltrators. Sarutobi sent out a team of ANBU to recall Jiraiya from his stupid personal interest trip, which had gone on far too long, and personally oversaw changes to gate security. Two years of improving security and even more infiltrators, and Konoha has perhaps the most extensive spy network anywhere, with the best information and the most secure borders.

Konoha has the best spy system, the best customs, and the best information. Konoha is even better and stronger in the intelligence department than she was before the Kyuubi attack.

But Konoha does not have her Jinchuuriki anymore.

Fighting the urge to start cursing viciously (and therefore become the topic of another ANBU poll entitled 'When is the Old Man going to throw a fit, go mad, and go to war?', because yes, he does know about that poll), Sarutobi shifts through the papers, sees nothing of importance, and sighs again.

Where in the wide world – where in all of the Elemental Nations can Naruto be?

* * *

Naruto wakes up at 6:00, after a solid 9 hours of sleep. It is a Thursday, and Wednesday the least busy day of the week. On the weekends, she's often up until after midnight.

She washes her face, visits the bathroom, and begins her morning run in the House. There are 17 rooms of laundry, and she lugs it all, room by room, down to the first floor, where the baskets are. 17 rooms make 8 baskets and one extra, which she divides among the rest, deciding that carrying more per lap is better than running an extra.

She runs the baskets down to the launders. The store isn't open yet, but they leave a small room open, where there are lockable cages for customers to store washing items. Aya once said the cages were installed after she realized that nobody wanted to run laundry down in the heat after the sun rose. Naruto selects the biggest cage and dumps everything in there.

When she returns for her sixth basket, she finds Saeki waiting for her at the door. "Saeki-san?" Naruto questions. It's early yet, and Saeki has dark shadows under her eyes. Naruto knows she had three customers yesterday: an unexpected early one, a traveler by the looks of it, and the customary two late Wednesday clients – a merchant who always brings gifts and a married businessman who always declares he will not return again (but returns nevertheless).

Saeki pulls away from the door frame. "Come up with me," she says. "Mae and I have to talk to you."

"I'm almost done with the baskets," Naruto says. "I'll be up in a moment."

"It's important. I'll have the receptionist run the laundry." Naruto frowns, and Saeki adds, "She scheduled the extra for me; she won't refuse me this. Not if she knows what's good for her job. Anyway, this is more important than laundry."

Naruto hesitates, but Saeki isn't one to exaggerate. Mae stretches the truth sometimes, to get people's attention, but Saeki's always frank. So she climbs the stairs, her thighs burning, and follows Saeki to Mae's room.

As soon as they're in, Mae closes the door. And then locks it, even though the locks are only supposed to be used if the customer wishes so.

Immediately, Mae starts talking. "Yesterday, Shindou-san told me that Matron's holding a Velvet Auction." At Naruto's questioning face, she elaborates, "They're not strictly legal. The House isn't strictly legal, by Konoha law, but they tolerate us because we're better than black market woman-selling. But the Velvet Auctions are almost like the black market trades. They run high in price, and to discourage the Velvet girls from protesting it, we're not told until after we're sold."

Naruto feels a sinking in her stomach. "What does this have to do with me?" She manages to choke out.

"You're being sold," Saeki says bluntly.

"Saeki!" Mae snaps.

"It's the truth. My second client told me, and he's not one to lie, no matter how disgusting of a human being he is. I even affirmed it with the third." Saeki says. "And we all knew it would happen sometime."

"I'm… I'm underage," Naruto says. "I don't… I don't want…"

"Nobody ever wants to be a whore," Saeki snaps. "Do you think that while little boys go around saying they want to be ninja, little girls go around saying they want to be whores?" She closes her eyes. "Nobody with any options chooses this path."

"We all had options," Mae disagrees, firmly. "We just all decided this was the least painful, the most money, the most comfort. Naruto… We had this conversation just a couple weeks ago. You and I – all of us really – we knew from the start that you were meant for better things than the Velvet House. Now that Mother Tessa's trying to sell you to the highest bidder and the price is running high, it's going to be harder to get away. She'll probably send people out after you, and she's got muscle in the Red District, but once you get over into the right part of town, she can't get at you."

"You're telling me to leave?" Naruto stutters. She tries not to think about Mother Tessa selling her, or what price she's already at.

"We're telling you to escape," Saeki says. "And we're going to help you get away, and stay alive." She stops pacing the floor and sits wearily on the edge of the bed.

"Stay alive?" Naruto echoes. Her throat aches with unsaid things. Words like, _it's too soon_, and _I'm happy here. _

"Well, the world of ninja is a cutthroat one," Mae smiles. "But you'll do just fine. We've been teaching you all this time, after all." Mae's voice softens when she glances at Naruto. "Don't worry, child. I know we've told you awful things about Kunoichi and the ninja world, but you'll do just fine. You're meant for greater things."

Saeki snorts. "You're a romantic at heart, Mae-chan," she says. "Ruto-chan, who do you think you are?"

"What do you mean?" Naruto asks, her voice small.

"Do you remember your name, Naruto?" Mae asks deliberately. "You're not Rutoshi of the House. You are a little girl with tremendous capability and you are never, ever going to end up where we are!" She is almost yelling by the end of it, so takes a couple heavy breaths to calm herself. In a softer voice, Mae continues, "Don't you remember what you said? You're going to be a ninja and protect us, right?"

There is something pleading in her eyes, and Mae never pleads, and of course, they're right, so Naruto just nods. "Tell me what I should do," she says, like they're just planning another prank on Mother Tessa or that stuck up Nana. And Mae smiles and Saeki smirks like it's just the same.

And Naruto can almost believe that everything is going to be okay.

* * *

The plan involves disguising the marks on her face with makeup instead of chakra and cutting off Naruto's beautiful long hair, which, according to Saeki, is worse than worthless in any case. "If you're not planning on being a whore," she says snidely, "then long hair is suicidal." And then she picked up the scissors and started cutting.

The plan also involves turning Naruto into a boy. "The gender ratio of acceptance is two boys for every girl, so you're more likely to get in as a boy," Mae says. "That's how they ration out the teams, too. If there are six genin-worthy boys and four genin-worthy girls, one girl will be dropped to make three teams of so-called 'perfect' gender balance. All the teams are two boys and one girl, and everybody knows they plan it. They should just come out and say it instead of pretend like it's a coincidence every year."

Mae is definitely a little bitter and Saeki is definitely a little angry still at the shinobi world, but in the end, they are still pushing Naruto back in to it. But in the short days that follow, in the timeframe before Saturday, Naruto has little time to think about it. She has lessons on how boys act – though she still has a pretty good idea from living as one for so long – a horrendous new wardrobe consisting of baggy clothing and ugly colors, and classes on how idiots act ("Never show your true potential until it's worth it. It's suicidal," Saeki said, along with a long list of other things that were sure to be 'suicidal' and that Naruto must never do).

And that Friday evening, Saeki and Mae both call in sick days, and if anybody thinks it's suspicious, they don't say anything. That last night, they sleep ensconced in lavender-scented blankets and the warmth of almost-family.

Almost-family that will soon be nothing but bonds broken in hopes of new and better ones.

* * *

Some days, Minai still curses the little Jinchuuriki that ran away. She'd had a nice, cushy job as administrative liaison between the Academy and the formal governing offices, but after the incident with the little girl, she was demoted to a different kind of administrator. The front-desk receptionist variety.

_It's not like I meant for the stupid girl to run away_, she thinks for the fourth time this morning, cursing at another paper cut. She reinforces the wound with her chakra and watches it start to heal up slowly. _I just thought that her ANBU guards would cover it, and there would be no need for me to disrupt class, but _no_, the ANBU guards were in a conference with Ibiki and _apparently, _I was supposed to just _know_ that it would turn into a dire situation. _

Minai studies the stack of sheets on her desk and takes out the top ten or so packets, turning to a cabinet and pulling out the corresponding folder. _Most little girls would run to cry at a park, or go back home, but our special little Jinchuuriki just disappears. _

And more than two years of searching later, years of extensively checking every person that passed in or out of the gates, years of questioning and cross-questioning every ninja who could have come into contact with the girl – even the civilians, at one point – years of scouring the Elemental Nations; years later, she was still missing. The Hokage's wrath had borne down on the hapless ANBU guard and Minai herself, and many fruitless excursions were made into Kumo, into that retard Nonoko's mind, into every other Elemental Nation, but nothing was found.

Nothing.

She stamps another paper with the official Academy stamp, signs her name in the stamp signature line, and puts it in another growing pile. The First Hokage had reputedly handled all paperwork himself, but the nation was small then. Measures had been added, and now papers must go through three lines of paper-pushers, and another line just to check that all papers had been stamped thrice, and if there is any little discrepancy, anything of great (or slight) importance, the Hokage will find it on his desk.

And Minai, for one, knows better than to piss off the grandfatherly old man.

The door tinkles and she looks up, a polite greeting already on her lips just in case it's a clan member checking up on a student, when she sees the figure in the doorway. The words on her lips die.

"Hey," the little boy says exuberantly. "I'm here to be a ninja!"

But that's not the important part. The important part is that the boy looks like Uzumaki Naruto (whom Minai admittedly did not know was a girl until she read the damn girl's profile), and she has been missing for two years, and this might get her promoted again, just maybe.

"Are you okay, miss?" The little brat asks, and Minai realizes she is standing. She runs a hand down her skirt, smoothing the fabric out, and forces a smile on her lips. But before she can get a word out, the brat is off again, "I'm Shindou Toshiro, but everybody calls me Shiro, and my father," a significant glance here, "and I recently moved here, and Konoha is famous for having awesome ninja, so I want to be a ninja, okay?" He puts a hand on his hip and stares up at her, with an expression so entitled and snobby Minai blinks twice.

This… is not Uzumaki Naruto. The little jinchuuriki Minai remembers was meek and didn't talk much and fled from confrontation. She didn't have challenging eyes like these, or a voice with such a rich, textured accent – the kind Minai always heard from the mouths of foreign ambassadors or some of the very rich civilian kids.

"There are procedures to be followed," she says, settling back into her chair. Now that she looks closely at his face, he doesn't look much like Uzumaki Naruto. He doesn't have those distinct whiskers, for one, though there is a dim scar on his right cheek. "I don't know _who_ your father is, but he can't just –"

The smile, which had slowly been disappearing from the boy's – Shinda? Sando? – lips, slides back in. "I don't plan to become a ninja with _that man's_ money," he says, his grin lopsided and equally bitter and victorious, "I'm fully confident in my abilities as a student."

Minai sighs. "I'm sorry, but I don't think you know what you're asking for."

"Is there an advancement test for talented students? A scholarship acceptance program, maybe?" His smile is dangerous. Minai can think of the exact section of the Academy Charter that talks about placement for late but talented or gifted students, and a scholarship program encompassing even housing and meals, if needed. She looks at him again, at his posture, which screams defiance, and then closer, at his red-rimmed eyes, at the tiredness in his face.

Minai wants to hate him, she really does. She wants to hate him for not being Uzumaki Naruto, for making her morning more difficult, and for his expression, which says that he won't give up, not like she has.

But she finds that she can't.

"All right," she says and gets up again, stretching out her calves. "Come with me."

* * *

Iruka doesn't know what Minai wants with him during his preparatory period, but he doesn't like it already. The kids are out for their lunch and playground time, with other administrators watching over them, and this hour and a half is the only time he has to eat and work on these papers. A long time ago, Iruka naively believed that homework would stop after he got out of school. And that teachers assigned it to give students grief.

Now he believes that teachers are all secretly masochistic.

But even though Minai was demoted a couple years ago after the fiasco with the jinchuuriki, she's still in a higher position than him and he still has to listen to her. So Iruka trudges out of the door toward the third academy training field, where she asked him to meet her.

As he nears it, he is surprised to hear Minai's voice, animated like it hasn't been for years. The blonde is known around campus for being rather aloof, and with some curiosity Iruka picks up his pace and directs some chakra to his ears. "So? How have I done?" A distinctly young voice asks.

"You've been doing okay so far," Minai's voice says. "But don't get arrogant, brat. You've only managed to pass the book learning so far. Combat is what makes a ninja."

"That's why you're stuck as a teacher and not actually doing anything, huh?"

"Why, you little!" Iruka rounds the corner and is treated to the sight of the normally composed blonde giving a little sunshine-headed boy a noogie. The boy yelps and flails a little comically, and she laughs, "Say that again?"

"Uncle! I give, I give!" Minai tugs his hair again, for good measure, and he yelps, "Sensei, save me!"

"What?" Iruka stares at the boy, startled. Minai didn't notice him yet, he knows, and he doesn't think the boy saw him coming in… He watches the boy closely as Minai lets him go and dusts herself off, still smiling.

"Iruka-sensei," Minai says, her voice still alive, "this is Shindou Toshiro. Shindou-kun, this is Iruka-sensei. He'll be testing you on the other aspects of ninja learning." She nods at Iruka and Iruka sighs internally. So some kid with connections wants to get in before the start of the new school year, even though it's only four months away. Why can't he wait until the school year, when the test is much easier and acceptance rate higher? Iruka doesn't want to go through the diplomatic nightmare of nicely telling a rich family that the kid is just not suited to being a ninja, and no, the money won't help.

"Iruka-sensei?" Shindou asks, his voice young. "I'm Shindou Toshiro, future ninja." He sticks out a hand and Iruka shakes it bemusedly.

"Er, yes," he stammers, and looks over at Minai. She's settled down by a tree, looking as if she has nothing else to do and is fully prepared to see this 'testing' through, even though she's usually complaining about paperwork. "Well, then, shall we start with chakra-molding and jutsu?" He asks Shindou, turning to face the boy.

"What do you want me to do?" _Straightforward_, Iruka thinks, _I don't want to deal with this fallout. But the kid looks like he can take it pretty well – maybe if he realizes himself that he can't be a ninja? _

"Do you know how to mold chakra?" Iruka asks, already formulating an explanation in his head.

* * *

_Do I know how to mold chakra? _Naruto nearly scoffs, but doesn't say a word. The teacher's eyes wander, like his attention is elsewhere.

_["Hold out your hand. Now close your eyes and imagine all the color in the world gathering in a ball in your hand."]_

All the colors in the world. Not stopping to give the teacher a reply, Naruto holds out her hand and pulls chakra into it. She's so used to the feeling of everything in her rising that she doesn't have to close her eyes to feel it anymore, just like she's used to the sudden clarity in the colors around her, the acuteness of the chakra in the air around her, the feeling of the world being made clear. With Saeki and Nonoko, she trained hard to keep the sense of color, so even now she can close her eyes and _see_ Iruka and Minai and the trees, ground and sky.

She knows the shape of the ball in her hand, knows its diameter and its shape without looking. Naruto can stretch it into different shapes, into different things, shape it and tease it and change it to show her control, but she doesn't need such things. Saeki taught her, the hard way, not to show anything unless she needs to, not even for the sake of proving that she's better, not even if she's angry or hurt.

"Bragging is a bad habit," she'd said more than once, "And bad habits get you killed."

Some moments, Naruto realizes that Saeki and Mae were preparing her for being a ninja the whole time, that they never intended for her to stay with them.

But she never dwells on the thought.

"Is that good enough?" She demands, thoughts making her voice a little rough on the edges. She puts her hands on her hips and stares at him with hard eyes, hardened by the friends and the love and the girls and the Velvet House. Hardened by what he made her remember.

He stutters. "No, that's perfect," he manages to say. They stand there in awkward, tense silence for a moment before he seems to remember how to continue. "Now, we'll test your Taijutsu. That's physical combat."

Naruto is not good at Taijutsu. She went through some basic stances with Saeki sometimes, but in the cramped and overly ornate rooms at the House, and with so much else to learn, Taijutsu was a question they never saw fit to answer. But the man beckons, so she slides into a low stance, feeling the stretch in her thighs, and wonders how well she has to do on this – though Saeki said to show as little as possible, Naruto knows it is not an option to fail. It never was.

She closes her eyes a moment to center herself, letting the world of color, the world of chakra, take over for a moment. It swells around her, leaning in, as if she is the center of the earth and everything, all the color, is just trying to become closer to her. Beauty blooms at the edges of her closed eyelids, making her breath come just a little bit easier. There is the man, and there is Minai, and the edge of the tree line, and further on are clumps that must be animals, students, sky—she shakes herself loose before she can get lost in the infinite world, forever onward.

"Whenever you're ready," the man says.

"I'm ready," she says. And then she leaps forward, swinging her right hand down in a diagonal slash and bringing her left foot up second later in a diagonal kick. Iruka moves backward, out of the range of her attack, and aims a weak punch, which she bats out of the air, directing it away from her. He doesn't overextend, but falls back a little more, stabilizing his stance, his hand already fisting in anticipation, so Naruto doesn't go after him. She feints left, and then dodges right and sweeps her leg at his. Her shin collides solidly with his, and she muffles a curse as her leg begins throbbing in pain.

"That was a hard hit," Iruka says, and though his voice has the faintest traces of laughter, the compliment seems to be genuine. Naruto smiles, though the throbbing, and collapses onto the dirt-packed ground. "If you reinforce a hit like that with chakra, it should do more damage," he says. Then pauses. "Do you know how to reinforce your body with chakra?"

Naruto does, but she doesn't know if this is something she should know. "Am I supposed to?" She hedges, hesitantly.

Iruka laughs again. "Your knowledge of chakra is certainly already past the level we expect for even a third year student, and your taijutsu is alright. Minai-san, I assume his written tests were good?" Minai nods affirmative. "Well, with this much, you've certainly passed already. Unless you want to try to skip a grade, which I wouldn't recommend, you'll get free leave to the class that will be graduating next year. Do you have a guardian we can ask about your admission fees?"

Money? Naruto doesn't have any money. And her cover story doesn't qualify for financial aid. She shouldn't have picked a rich boy, but she though that being a poor boy was a step closer to her real self, and dangerous. "I thought there was a scholarship," she blurts, finally. "The library copy of the charter said so."

"Scholarship?" Minai coughs from the shade under the tree. "I thought – your father!"

"My father has nothing to do with this," Naruto snaps, quite deliberately. She takes a deep breath, as if to calm herself, and repeats, more quietly, "My father doesn't know anything about this. And I aim to keep it that way."

"I'm afraid that we can't accept you without the consent of your legal guardian," Iruka says quietly.

"He thinks I killed my mother," Naruto speaks over the end of his sentence. "But it was all his fault that Mom died. It was just a simple C rank mission, but _his_ enemies attacked her and she died." She remembers the pain on Nonoko's face as her first teacher talked about her parents, and tries to twist her expression into an imitation of it. "But he's not my father and he's never been, and we are not a family, because he's already forgotten me and he's already forgotten Mom and if he really loved her, he would understand why I have to do this. He can't stop me, because he doesn't know the first thing about me, and he's forgotten everything she was."

Iruka grimaces and says, "We still can't accept you."

So Naruto brings out her last card. She reaches into her too-baggy clothing, which rustle too much for comfort, and brings out the forged emancipation document, one of Saeki's specialties. She thinks about Mae and Saeki and how she'll never see them again, and whatever happened to Nonoko and why is she always alone, and tears well up in her eyes.

"Are you happy now?" She asks, and it sounds choked. "I'm not even a part of his family legally anymore. He doesn't care. He let me go."

And Iruka takes it and barely glances at it. He stares at her and Minai comes up beside her and wraps her in her arms, which smell of ink and paper and dust. And Minai rocks her back and forth and murmurs soft, sweet words, but all Naruto can do is stand there, stone still, because this is the woman who hated her before, who was part of the organization that took Nonoko away.

Finally, Iruka says something else. "What was her name?"

"Shut up, Iruka," Minai snaps. "Look at-"

"Whose name?" Naruto asks quietly, under Minai's voice, from inside her paper arms.

"Your mother's name. She was a Kunoichi, right? A Konoha Kunoichi. Tell me her name, and we'll process the paperwork to let you into the Academy." Naruto knows he can't stop her now, not with Minai and Saeki's expertly forged document on her side, but she also knows that this will be her teacher, and she can't let him hate her, and what is a name, anyway? But at the same time, she doesn't know anything, she doesn't know any dead girls, she doesn't…

Then, unbidden, comes the memory of the time she was crying, and Mae found her in the hall and wrapped her in lavender-scented silk and they lay on the mattress and talked about the secret things that even the walls couldn't hear. About Mae faking her death, to get away from the death and the killing and the lies. Because Mae said that the weak have to do what they can to survive.

And that's when Naruto knows she has gone too far to turn back. Because she looks up at Iruka's untrusting eyes and she says Mae's real name.

"Her name was Uminaka Misaki," she says, barely a whisper. "And don't you forget it."

It's a promise. To Nonoko and Mae and Saeki, because no matter what their past mistakes were or what country they were from or what name they went by, they had loved her and she had loved them. So Naruto promises, at least to herself, not to forget them, and not to forget the girl they had made her.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Next time: Naruto makes a choice, even though it goes against what Saeki taught her. Iruka loses some money and Sakura does things that will come back to haunt her.

Failure: "Team 7 didn't pass the bell test. It was the best thing that ever happened to Naruto."  
My other story: a more action-based venture.

We are a team, you and I  
This is a thing you can't deny  
The words are mine, but you can see  
You are that which motivates me  
Let's work together, me and you  
I will write, and you'll review.

03.08.13: Edits (Timeline)

_Liffae ^-~_


	3. Inexorable Gravity

**Chapter Three: Inexorable Gravity**

_Tomorrow's sun  
__is on it's way –  
a relentless sun,  
inscrutable like life.  
- J.M. Machado de Assis _

***BREAK***

Iruka has never disliked a student so much.

And he can't even fathom why.

Maybe, he thinks, it is because Shindou had everything he did not have – a home, a father, a family left alive. Shindou had that, and he left it for some intangible dreams. But even when Iruka thinks about that, there's no bitterness in his heart. Shindou's eyes are straightforward, and his smile is always tinged with weariness. Sometimes – even though Shindou has left for this intangible dream with more conviction that Iruka ever hopes to have – sometimes, Shindou looks as if he is carrying all the weight of the world on his shoulders.

No – maybe hate is too strong a word. But Iruka can't stand Shindou for some reason. There is something uncomfortable, something that does not feel right. There is something that is wrong about the boy, and it puts him on edge.

When he is teaching, Iruka finds his eyes drawn to Shindou, who is all of a sudden not as completely brilliant as he seemed when Iruka tested him. Not a genius, as he expected, but an ordinary, hard-working boy. When the children are out playing and Shindou is somehow at the gravitational center of the students, smiling and bright and a sun in all respects, Iruka feels perturbed.

(Later Iruka remembers that the gravitational center of everything is supposed to be a deep, endless hole, which draws all things toward it, by which all worlds will inexorably fall.)

* * *

In all honesty, even before she befriended and came to know them, Naruto never thought that Hoshina and Tsuki would become ninja. Sure, they were in the ninja Academy, but it was widely known that the ninja Academy is better in all aspects of education than the civilian one, and those that can test into it do.

They were both flawed, too flawed to become killers. Hoshina was much too impulsive, always procrastinating, and never wanted to sit down (or stand up) and learn something. Tsuki was so passive – though others called him _kind_ – that he lacked even the drive to get angry with somebody who had hurt him for absolutely no reason.

Naruto first encountered them while they were completing a punishment, moving at the pace of snails as they wiped down the Academy's southernmost wall.

She stopped and watched them, thoroughly amused by their actions. Brown-haired Tsuki moved lethargically, as if he was afraid of finishing the work, and red-headed Hoshina was constantly breaking away from the wall to examine something that had caught her eye. "You're never going to finish at that pace," she said. And then, insanely, she picked up a rag, dipped it in the bucket, and began helping them. To be honest, Naruto finished most of the work herself, but ever since that first tentative contact, they'd developed into friends.

So much so that now, after their inevitable failed final, Naruto approaches them. She sees the look on their faces – an identical look, copied and pasted like a spotless Bunshin – one that speaks of resignation to something they all knew would happen all along.

"Well, it was a good experience," Hoshina says like an excuse, as Naruto approaches them. "Ninja schooling is much better than civilian anyway, and dirt cheap if you're under a certain income level to boot, so even though I was never going to be a ninja, it was a good choice." She smiles, but it looks sad and painful and angry at the same time. "Plus, if I passed and had to study under that batshit loco teacher, I'd go nuts myself!"

"No worries there," Naruto deadpans. "You're already crazy. Can't get much more than this." Hoshina laughs, a short bark of just-starting-to-heal laughter.

"I dunno," Tsuki says, his voice lighter than his expression. "That teacher was either smoking something or belonged in a psychiatric ward." The teasing note is there and his eyes are less solemn, and Naruto is so glad for it she giggles. "He basically told us only the two people who managed to steal bells from him were going to pass, and then after the test he told us we were all supposed to work together to get it? Like, what the heck, man! Is this a ninja team or an unconditional support group? Why don't we just all sit in a circle and share feelings?"

Naruto takes a step away from the heavily breathing, fuming Tsuki. "It's okay, Tsuki," she manages to squeak out. "I mean, you had plans besides becoming a ninja, right?" For a moment, Hoshina stops laughing and Tsuki looks away to stare into space. Naruto knows immediately that she's said something wrong, so she backtracks quickly. "And there's always the Corps. They don't have Jounin sensei assigned to them, but they rotate through a lot of teachers and might honestly be better learning."

"My parents won't fund the Corps. According to them, it's not being a real ninja anyway. They think I've wasted enough time already, and they barely allowed me to take the Genin team exam. Since I failed, it's time to _man up_ and join the family business." Tsuki's tone is bitter.

Funding reminds Naruto that she doesn't have anybody backing her. And Iruka asked her to go talk to him about it. But Iruka can wait, because Hoshina is starting to look teary again and Tsuki is staring off into the distance and she feels like they're about to break.

If only she had some people-glue, so she could patch them both together.

But Naruto doesn't have any tape meant for hearts and dreams, so she decides her arms will have to do. She crushes Tsuki in a hug, and Hoshina joins it not much later. None of them cry. It feels wrong, like grieving for something that had died long ago. And Naruto knows it's cruel, because though Tsuki and Hoshina never expected to be ninja, never really held the dream in their hands, somewhere along the way the dream pulled them into its hands, and now the hopeless hope is crushing them. None of them cry, though not for lack of feeling.

No, not a single tear comes out, no matter how much Naruto wants one to.

* * *

It's a little later before Naruto remembers Iruka and the Very Serious Funding Issue. And then she wishes she didn't, because just thinking about money makes her head start to ache.

"Shindou-kun," Iruka says, his voice very serious, the wrinkles around his eyes grave but kind. "The Academy has some rules, and while Minai-san and I have waived them for you for a little while, we can't allow you to freeload off of the funding for the Academy anymore. You've been living in the dorms for the scholarship students and the Academy has been footing your food funds, but we can't do that anymore. This means that you're going to have to find a place to live, get your estranged family in on the game plan, or somehow get into the top slot of your class for scholarships."

Naruto stares at him blankly. While she knows it can't go on for much longer, it still hurts a little. Even though she knows they have perfectly legitimate reasons (and the Academy is used to receiving the scholarship fund for use on other things, since a clan-sponsored child usually takes the top spot) – even though intellectually she knows all these things, it still feels like betrayal.

She nods at him, and manages to say, "Can I have a bit of time to think about it?" Before unceremoniously leaving her seat and running out the door. The halls are just about deserted, but her mind is so full.

"_Never show your true potential until it's worth it. It's suicidal,"_ Saeki says. _"Top slot of your class,"_ Iruka booms over her voice. Nonoko, turning to her with wide eyes, almost shouting, _"We can lead the ninja world!"_

And her own voice, telling herself that for Mae and Saeki and Nonoko, she will conquer the world and hold it safe in her hands.

And then there's Nonoko's voice again, so loud and real that for a second Naruto is fooled. She doesn't know what Nonoko's voice is saying, but just the sound of it brings her moving feet to a stop, her pounding heart to a murmur. Naruto is fooled, and she stops by the door (even though it's impossible) and for some reason somebody has set up a genjutsu there.

Because Nonoko is in the classroom.

Nonoko is in the classroom, in the Academy, right in front of her, almost as if she never left.

It's not until Nonoko looks up with a puzzled expression that Naruto realizes she is halfway across the room. She almost throws herself at her very first teacher with abandon, almost starts crying, almost _talks_ before her mind stops her and warns her that something is very wrong.

Nonoko smiles, but it's a puzzled smile. And it's a slow, painful, twitchy smile. To Naruto, it feels like it takes hours for Nonoko's cheeks to bunch up, for the corners of her lips to tilt skyward. When she talks, it is a stuttered question. "He-Hello?"

Naruto backs away, stumbling over the suddenly solid air, over her suddenly senseless feet, grasping at words that just aren't there. She fumbles and then something spills out of her mouth – "Do you recognize me?" – and the confused look Nonoko gets drags her heart down, down, down. Sudden adrenaline courses through suddenly cold veins. She brings her hands up but her fingers do not cooperate, and fumble the sign, but her chakra knows anyway and she sends out a short, compressed chakra burst, just like she's practiced.

The illusion doesn't break.

The nightmare is still there.

Nonoko-sensei doesn't recognize her. And there's something else, something deeper wrong about Nonoko's slackened face and her dull grey eyes and the slant of her mouth. As Naruto watches, Nonoko's face convulses again before settling into a painfully happy expression.

"Y-you are Sh-Shindou-kun, right?" Nonoko, says, stumbling, her voice coming out in hesitant gasps.

Naruto barely has the presence of mind to spit out a quick reply. Then her feet carry her away, out of the classroom, away away away. _Far from here._

Again she is running.

There's a buzzing in her head, and a fire in her lungs, and a pain somewhere not in her body. There is Nonoko and Iruka and money and death and Saeki and Mae all in her head, jumbled in a cataclysmic mess, too many thoughts for her to think.

There's too many thoughts and Naruto can't think.

She pauses, panting, at the door of the apartment that isn't really hers.

She pauses and thinks about what Saeki said. _Never show your true potential_. She pauses and thinks about Nonoko, about how the administration hates her and _by-the-Great-Sage _it's all her fault that Nonoko, who was so beautiful and wonderful and alive became like this. She cries for her, and for Saeki, and Mae, and everything else, and it hurts even more because none of them are there to wrap an arm around her and whisper words she can't hear into her too-short hair.

Being alone hurts too much, so Naruto closes her eyes, reaches out, and feels the whole world, blue and green and color, alive all around her, just like Nonoko taught her. It reminds her that she is not alone. It reminds her of what is beautiful.

She feels the answer.

If she can't show her true potential, then she'll just have to manage to stay a step ahead. A whole step ahead. Several dozen more. Somehow, she'll just have to stick at the top slot in her class, outperform, and still have something left over.

And if Nonoko is broken somehow, she'll just have to find a way to fix her, and protect her, and make sure nothing like that ever happens to anybody she loves ever again.

Naruto sighs and opens her door. It's her apartment, and it will stay that way.

She will keep her word.

* * *

The first time Iruka has something tangible, something beyond a feeling, it is ironically a success. Shindou Toshiro is a shooting star and his meteoritic rise to the top starts precisely after Iruka talks to him about the scholarship position. Somehow, his next test scores are all perfect – with one question missed on one of the tests, but on that he earned the extra credit. Somehow, he is suddenly much better in the classroom spars. Somehow, his chakra control improves to the point where Iruka can't believe it's the same boy who was only mediocre a week ago.

Even Minai comments on how "It's lucky Toshiro-kun picked himself up and rose to his true potential before time ran out!"

There is something wrong with the picture, but for the life of him Iruka can't understand. Shindou Toshiro is still the center of the classroom, only now he's a smart center and even motivating previously unmotivated friends to work hard. He's a perfect student, a teacher's pet, a kind of charismatic leader that Iruka had always wished for in the classroom. He is helpful, kind, and diligent beyond the likes of even Uchiha Sasuke.

But why the sudden change? Iruka knows that Shindou Toshiro is hiding something, but he cannot fathom why.

Iruka knows he was right all along – that uneasy feeling – but he still does not understand.

So Iruka finds himself watching Shindou Toshiro more, and the more he sees, the more uneasy he is. Something is wrong. Something is strange. There is something about Shindou Toshiro that is just off. Something even beyond the test scores, which Iruka finds himself proud of and wanting to explain away. There is something in his movements, something in his face, something in his smile.

It eats at him, that something.

It kills him, that something.

* * *

Sakura knows it is love.

She knows it like she knows everything that is true. She knows it better than she knows her textbooks, better than she knows her equations. Haruno Sakura knows it's love, because her heart tells her so and the stars tell her so and his smile tells her so, and if this isn't love she doesn't even need to know what love is because _this_ is wonderful and happy and buoyant and she could just float away on wings made of her own lighter-than-air feelings.

The grass is green, the sky is blue, and she is in love with Shindou Toshiro.

And Ino is too. Sakura has always been what Ino is, ever since Ino saved her – not that she will ever admit it – and just once, just in love, she wants to be better than Ino. She wants to show Ino that she doesn't need that help anymore, that Haruno Sakura can stand on her own two feet, that she's not _lesser_, she's not the _pitiable_ girl who needed help anymore.

Besides, Shindou Toshiro (Toshiro-kun, she giggles in her own mind, Toshiro-kun, Shiro-kun… Shindou Sakura. Ooh.) makes it so easy to love him. He's nice, diligent and smart, and a good sport about everything. He's friends with just about everybody in the class, even Uchiha Sasuke – or at least Sasuke-kun doesn't mind him. Everybody knows Sasuke-kun is like, the second-hottest. Maybe even first, but he's way colder than _Shiro-kun_.

(Not that Sakura really knows why she calls them _hot_. Isn't it a temperature? But Ino does, and so she does too.)

She giggles again, this time aloud, and as the subject of her love walks in the door she summons up all her courage in a blast and calls out before she can lose her nerve, "Hi, Toshiro-kun!" She can't find it in her to call him Shiro-kun yet, though he said they could when he introduced himself eons ago. Ino titters beside her like she's an idiot for even trying, but she holds on to her smile still.

And Toshiro _hears_ her. He looks up and smiles, dazzling and cute, and it breathes confidence into her. "Hey, Sakura-chan," he says easily, and part of Sakura knows it's just because it's in his nature to be familiar and friendly and accepting, but the other part of her thinks it's a victory and lets out a victory cry. Some other part of her feels the acknowledgement in his however brief glance and smile, and that part just wants to laugh and scream and shout. She's buoyed up by warmth, by feelings she never knew she could feel.

For once in her life, Haruno Sakura feels superior.

Ever since she told Ino she was a rival, and an equal, Ino had grown more distant. _Cha, it must be because she realized I'm stronger than her,_ Sakura thinks to herself, _I don't _need_ her anymore. I don't need her pity. I don't need her help. I don't _need_ Ino, _Shannaro!

Some little bit of her – some misguided, _dependent_ bit hurts, but it's healed over by the echo of Toshiro's words in her head and the image of the smile on his face. She replays it over and over in her head, and the warmth rises, bringing her up with it.

Sakura falls in love with him all over again.

* * *

The first time Naruto talks to Uchiha Sasuke, she's scared shitless.

It's not of him. And it's not of anything really tangible. Honestly, Naruto knows she should not be afraid (It's like a new beginning and it's okay if Nonoko doesn't remember her because she remembers Nonoko and it's okay if Nonoko doesn't recognize her because she _loves_ Nonoko) and Sasuke finds her right outside the disabled teacher's door, shaking like a leaf.

When she sees him, she prepares herself for the questions. She scrambles for answers. Her heart pounds even more furiously in her throat, against her skin, trying to tear itself away from her fear.

But he just stands there.

And it's strangely familiar, so déjà vu that Naruto remembers the time when Yamanaka Ino told her about Sasuke's family and Sasuke overheard. He avoided even the sight of her for days, even though they'd been getting along-ish as competitors for the top spot in the class listings (posted every Monday on the school's bulletin) – of course, getting 'along' with Sasuke constituted of not being glared out of the seat beside him.

And finally she'd found him, confronted him, and just stood there before him. She didn't have any words, and she just wanted him to know that she wouldn't ask any questions, that he wouldn't have to tell her anything until he wanted to.

As she watches his impassive face, searching his posture for something, anything, she finds herself relaxing.

Uchiha Sasuke is just there. Just there. No questions, no words, no nothing. Not confrontational, not judgmental. Just _there._

And she's not scared shitless anymore.

She nods, briefly, trying to keep her composure when normally she would've started talking already. And it is ironically Uchiha Sasuke who says the first word that passes between them. He smirks a little, starts to walk away, and then, like an afterthought, tosses over his shoulder, "Dobe."

For a few seconds Naruto scrambles through all her interactions with her only competitor for the scholarship position, trying to understand what the sudden insult could mean. Then she remembers that sometimes friends call each other names and though she doesn't quite understand, she calls after him, "Teme!"

She doesn't stay long enough to see his response, if he has one, because she opens the door and walks in to meet Nonoko for the very second time.

* * *

Iruka has a couple theories regarding Shindou Toshiro, and they're all so outlandish he doesn't like to think he's thought of them – just for his own self-esteem. One involves the late Yondaime, because of the curious sunshine color of Shindou's hair and the depth of his blue eyes and just the look of his smile and _he has to stop thinking about it or he'll start thinking his ridiculous theory is a truth_. Another has to do with demons in disguise. One even has to do with poor old Nonoko-sensei, though he's sure it's just Shindou's nature to be nice, even to the mentally broken and senseless.

When Iruka starts thinking about spies undercover from Iwa, he knows something must be done.

Iruka knows that he has to do something, but he isn't sure what until he finds Shindou wandering around the halls of the Academy apartment complex after school hours one day. Many of the teachers also live in the building built for Academy staff and scholarship recipients, as it's close to the school, cheap, and of a quality above a teacher's pay grade.

Shindou looks up, his face a mask of embarrassed sheepishness. "I lost my key," he blurts quickly, and Iruka is suddenly hit by how _normal_ the boy's voice sounds. It used to have the rich texture of a politician's son, or a noble's accent, but the formerly overwhelming texture has dulled to a slight exotic tint – _of course_, he supposes to himself, _children learn quickly_.

_Children forget quickly._

"We'll get you a duplicate one," Iruka starts, then realizes what a perfect opportunity this is and rapidly switches gears, "tomorrow. The Academy is locked up at night, and I'm afraid we can't get at it until it opens in the morning." He is startled at how easily the lie slips out of his mouth, how thoughtlessly he includes the false reason.

Iruka doesn't expect it of himself. And Shindou apparently doesn't either, because he accepts the statement casually. "Alright then," he says, "I guess I'll just go see if I can room with Minai-san."

Immediately, Iruka has the feeling of something wrong, something he can't place, that same nagging feeling that he always seems to get when he is around Shindou Toshiro. He thinks about it for a couple seconds. Minai, as everybody knows, moved back after her demotion because her salary couldn't keep up the high-end apartment she had near the merchant sector. But that's not the problem here.

Ah. The problem, Iruka belatedly realizes, is that Shindou is an adolescent male child and probably shouldn't be living with unrelated women. It's funny – and it nags at him, that funny feeling, it shouts and it screams and it's just at the edge of his mind – because for some reason Iruka has never thought of Shindou as a prepubescent boy. And he knows this is important, and he almost knows why, but his mind shies away from it as if it is something he doesn't want to know. _Maybe it's his maturity,_ he tells himself, _he's just not somebody you think of as prepubescent, _he thinks, and leaves it at that. Still, the thought hovers at the edge of his mind, tipping on the verge of his tongue.

"I'm not sure if that's appropriate," he says slowly instead of the thing on the tip of his tongue, and watches realization dawn on Shindou's face. It's funny, he thinks again, because Shindou didn't find it strange either.

_Funny._

Iruka smiles and adds, "You can stay with me instead," though the words taste _funny_ on his tongue. Shindou hesitates and he adds, "Hey, I'm not _that_ bad." Neither of them laugh so he continues awkwardly, "I'll treat you to some dinner first. Ichiraku sound good to you?"

Only when they are seated in the stand with four steaming cups of ramen before them does Iruka wonder why he is so desperate to find out more about this elusive but open boy. Just curiosity alone cannot open his wallet. There is something about him that is so remarkable, so reliable, so _familiar_ that it calls to Iruka_. _Again Iruka thinks of the Yondaime, but quickly pushes it out of his mind. No, it's not one of his wild theories but something tangible about the boy's eyes, something in his face, something in the way he speaks that draws everybody inescapably toward him. Iruka remembers mid-mouthful that gravity does not discriminate, and Shindou is the black hole center, and he is prone to falling as well.

And if their conversation is a bit tilted, like a game of cat and mouse, it just makes it more fun.

And if Shindou includes Old Man Ichiraku in the conversation as easily as if they were a trio of friends, and Ayame-chan later when she comes out, Iruka does not look away from the gravity happening before his eyes.

And if Shindou gulps down his three bowls of ramen and then wipes his mouth daintily, almost like a… and Iruka's mind stutters again, he evades the answer there almost willingly.

When they are done and back in the apartment complex only three blocks away, Shindou pauses in his story about the rat in Nonoko-sensei's classroom and how he valiantly captured it with two pieces of chalk and a poster off the wall and Iruka makes a mistake. Iruka makes a mistake because he asks his first real question of the night, and it slips out of his mouth before he can stop it.

"How do you know Nonoko-sensei, Shindou-kun? Why did you go see her?"

The look on Shindou's face transforms him.

Iruka turns away and quickly unlocks and opens his door, trying not to notice how his hands are suddenly trembling – _trembling. _He doesn't understand; or rather, he understands all too well and he doesn't want to. He walks in and turns on the lights and says, quietly, to his neat room, "Come on in." He's startled by his own words, because the words that he thought would fill his mouth were more along the lines of _never mind _or _sorry, you don't have to answer that. _He is startled and he can't find a way to take it back.

Shindou brushes past him, moving quickly, and this uncharacteristic rudeness is disconcerting to Iruka for a second. The boy darts to the screen door opening to the balcony and opens it. He turns his head back and calls, "Thanks for the meal, Iruka-sensei. I can get back to my room from here."

Iruka recognizes the escape, and he's glad for it. He's glad for Shindou's escape from his own mistake. He's glad for the smile on the boy's face. It's a normal smile: the toothy, scrunched-up-eyes, too-wide grin that looks somehow charming on his face. The one that shines at the center of the classroom, daily.

And all of a sudden Iruka is not glad, because he never realized how fake it looked. How practiced.

Then Shindou is jumping across the railing of the small balcony and Iruka doesn't move to stop him, doesn't even call out to be careful, bound in place by a smile and the look of betrayal on Shindou's too-young face.

* * *

Yamanaka Inoichi is startled when his lovely daughter Ino comes to ask – no, _demand _that he teaches her the clan techniques. Rather, startled is a pithy word for it. What Inoichi feels when he looks into her determined cyan eyes (no boring color like blue, but a beautiful cyan, just like her mother) is a grand concoction of little things. There is a little pride and a little happiness and a little brightness, but also a little worry and a little fear and a whole lot of things he can't even bring words to.

But Inoichi was not the Head of Intelligence for no reason, so he shoves all the feelings aside and smiles. "Is there any reason why?" He asks.

And Ino, who is so much like her mother (because both of them love to brag, though in front of them Inoichi calls it "having pride") jumps on the opportunity to explain. "Well, Shiro-kun asked me," she begins, and despite the fact that Inoichi always tries to hear his girls out completely when they talk (lest he face their wrath), he is so surprised that he preemptively interrupts her.

"Shiro-kun?"

She pouts but does not yell at him for the interruption, which to Inoichi is the first red flag. "Yeah, that's Shindou Toshiro to _you_. He's my friend," she says, adding unabashedly, "and my future husband!"

Feeling more than just a little animosity towards this _Shiro-kun_ already, Inoichi says, "I thought you liked Sasuke-kun?" The Uchiha, at least, was a known quantity. (And so antisocial that the Uchiha was unlikely to take his Ino away from him.)

"Dad!" Ino yells. "That was months and months ago. You're getting old!"

Inoichi nods very seriously and squats down to put himself at her eye level. "That's right," he says, "Daddy is getting old, so you have to remind him who Shindou-kun is. Remember way back when you liked Sasuke-kun and I asked you to tell me one bad thing about him for every three good things you came up with?" Inoichi still remembers some of the things Ino came up with, things that made him proud of how observant he had raised his daughter to be. He'd even added some of the things she said to Sasuke's psych evaluations. But Ino only looks at him now, her expression vaguely horrified. "Can you do that again?" He prompts.

Ino nods slowly, and starts rather exuberantly: "Well, Shiro-kun is _super_ smart. He's at the top of our class, so he's even smarter than _Sasuke-kun_, and he reads all the time. And he's _really_ nice, too, and he cares about everybody, even _Forehead-girl_ – I mean, Sakura. He doesn't like it when people fight and he _always_ helps us with our homework if we ask and he says hi to everybody and he remembers everybody's birthdays and even knows all the names of Yakumo-kun's pet fish even though one of them dies _at least _every day, that's how crazy _nice_ he is. Shiro-kun is so good at chakra control, even though us girls are supposed to be better, and he almost always wins in classroom spars because he does really inventive things that nobody else sees coming and-"

"One bad thing for every three good things," Inoichi reminds her, because it looks like Ino isn't going to run out of steam anytime soon. Ino closes her mouth and looks at the ground. To Inoichi, this is flag number two. His daughter has always loved speaking, and blabbers on both when he wants her to and when he pleads for her to stop. He bends down even further and tilts his head up so he can look her in the eyes. "Ino," he says, quietly, "Nobody's perfect, and that's okay. Surely there's _something_."

Ino sighs and sits heavily on the ground beside the tulip patch. Inoichi finds himself surprised, again, because he knows how much Ino likes it when she's taller (and therefore "better") than her father. But she's consciously lowered herself. For Inoichi, it's the third flag.

Ino looks out over the flower garden to their house and flower shop and then back at her father. When she speaks again, it is in a quiet voice. It is in the voice that she used to use to ask her father for favors.

"Daddy," she says, gently, "have you ever liked something so much that you wished it was perfect?" Inoichi makes to talk but she cuts him off, "Have you ever liked something so much that, even though you know in your mind that it can't possibly be perfect, you still don't look too closely at anything that could be wrong, because you _want _to _believe_ that it is?"

Inoichi looks at her daughter, looks into her serious cyan eyes – more serious than he's ever seen her, and cannot find any words to say.

She continues, "It's not just me either. Everybody likes him a lot. He even went and befriended Nonoko-sensei, and everybody knows she's kooky. But since Shiro-kun is so nice to her, and he legit cares about her so much that sometimes everybody goes and eats lunch with her. He got _Shikamaru _to study, Daddy. I swear Chouji has thinned down a little. Ever since he transferred in last year…" She pauses and recollects. "I don't know how to say it," Ino admits, "But if you knew him you'd know what I'm talking about. There's just something about him that shines."

Something about his daughter, something about her voice or her words or her eyes – something terrifies Inoichi. It terrifies him to death because she is changing and transforming and he doesn't even understand why.

And he wants to hate this _Shiro-kun_, but he can't. Because Inoichi remembers feeling like _that_, like _that man_ could never fail. And even though he wants to tell his daughter that all this trust, all this love is just going to hurt her, he cannot find the words because he remembers the comfort of that total conviction that _that man_, at least, could do no wrong. That he would follow behind him forever. That Konoha would always be bathed in such sunshine.

But Yamanka Inoichi also remembers that Namikaze Minato fell.

* * *

Naruto does not mean to hear them talking. And in fact, she doesn't listen at first.

But something catches her attention. The names click in her mind and she is suddenly running to the rhythm of the not-true-not-true words and her own heart beating violently against her spine, against her throat, against her whole world.

Tanto-sensei says: "I just heard. Are you going to the memorial service?" A heavy silence. "Are you okay?"

Iruka-sensei says: "It's just… always sad to hear about these things, you know? Nara Tomo was such a good student."

Tanto: "She was kind of quiet, but smart in that Nara way. You never expect that kind to fall."

Iruka: "I hear it was in defense of her teammate? An Inuzuka, right?" A pregnant pause. "Well, let it never be said that she was anything less than loyal."

Tanto: "It's the best way to die."

Die.

Die.

_Die._

* * *

In fact, Naruto has almost forgotten. In fact, she _wants_ to forget; she _wants_ to lose herself in him.

Minai loves him. Nonoko is just a broken but lovely lady to him. His world is composed of laughter and smiles, of the kids in his class and doing the best on the next test and working and playing in often unequal parts.

But the hidden truth is always sitting there, in her mind. She is _not _him. Minai hates her, and she knows it's because of what happened to Minai after she ran away. Nonoko is her first teacher, and it's all her fault that the closest thing she had to a mother now can't even speak in complete sentences.

And none of them are _her_ friends. None of them have ever even _heard_ of Uzumaki Naruto.

She sits down heavily on the floor and lets the burning tears escape the barrier of her eyelids. She lets them run down her cheeks. She lets them splash on the floor, on her legs, on her hands. She cries for Tomo and Shuuka and everything she still wants to forget. Even Mae and Saeki. They make her life so hard – they make it so hard, because otherwise she might be able to forget and let go and just be Shindou Toshiro (even if a little traitorous part of her head says that they are what make him, as well). But there's a distinct difference, because Shindou is made of up of other things as well: new friends and smiles and no secrets at all.

_How long_, a little part of her asks, _How long has it been since you last cried? _And she is breaking down again, dripping and leaking apologies to them, to all of them, and telling them she doesn't want to forget, she won't forget, she'll never forget. Telling them even if it kills her, she'll hold that pain close to her heart.

Shindou Toshiro is made up of smiles and sunshine and frivolously important things, but Uzumaki Naruto – Naruto is composed of tears.

* * *

Nara Shikamaru finds himself, once again, at cousin Tomo's grave. Tomo was seven years younger than the next youngest Nara child, so she ended up taking care of all of the "Nara babies," as she called them affectionately. Even though Shikamaru was smarter, even though he knew he was mature for a child, that difference of two years and maybe something about the way Tomo held herself overshadowed his mind.

Shikamaru sees some of his other cousins there sometimes, or Uncle Tasha, but he always waits a respectful distance away so they can talk to Tomo alone.

But the girl standing before Tomo's grave is not one he recognizes. She has a strange dress on and a very large sunhat hat that nearly covers her face, but he catches a sight of startled blue eyes looking straight at him and hair like gold. His first thought is _Ino_, but all at once, he knows it's not true.

Then she is running off, skirts flying in the air, and her back is too strangely familiar. It reminds him of somebody and he can't figure out why.

And when Shikamaru goes nearer to Tomo's grave, he finds the usual assortment of flowers, the daily bar of chocolate from Uncle Tasha, and a peppermint candy. Every night, Uncle Tasha comes to burn everything up so the smoke can float to the sky where Tomo is.

_How strange,_ Shikamaru thinks. _Maybe Uncle Tasha missed it from yesterday._ Then he takes a peppermint candy from his pocket – Tomo's favorite kind – and lays it beside the other one. He clasps his hands and bows three times.

Then, because there is nothing to say and the silence is too profound, Shikamaru talks about his class. He talks about how Chouji eats in the back of the room and they always try to pick the side of the classroom opposite of Shindou, because Iruka is always looking at Shindou. Things happen on the other side of the classroom, Shikamaru says, and he likes it that way. He has the vaguest feeling that Tomo is scolding him, telling him to put himself out there more.

Eventually Shikamaru gets tired of talking and his voice is hoarse and he's tired of trying to keep Shindou out of this private conversation, even though Shindou seems to make space for himself wherever he goes.

Shikamaru does not admit to himself, even in his mind, that he is sometimes jealous of Shindou's drive. That sometimes he wonders at how the boy embedded himself everywhere, even in his best friend Chouji with that bag of chips and a couple exuberant words and the (accepted) invitation to go running together. Chouji, running! Shikamaru still can't quite believe it. And he doesn't think that he can convince Chouji to go running, either.

But Shikamaru admits something else, out loud, something even more secret than that.

"I think you'd like my classmates. Especially Shindou," he says to the stone. "He reminds me of you, sometimes."

Shikamaru's voice doesn't break down on the last word. It doesn't, really. And he doesn't cry.

Really.

* * *

Naruto is walking slowly, balancing her cafeteria food on one arm, when she hears the scream.

The Academy is always filled with noise. Somewhere, there is always a class playing, children laughing and screaming. The individual classes are small, but there is a graduating class every two months, so the Academy has plenty of people in it.

There is always noise, but when Naruto hears the scream, she recognizes it.

The recognition is terrifying, and all at once she has dropped her tray and is sprinting down the hallway, heart pounding, chakra pumping through her veins in lieu of oxygen. She can't breathe. She can't think. She can't do anything but run as fast as her feet can take her. Naruto arrives sat Nonoko's door in too-long moments to find her sensei on the floor, convulsing, and she turns cold.

Didn't Saeki teach her first aid? Didn't the classes cover this? There's something she can do, something she should do, but Naruto is frozen in place, stuck hoping it's just a bad dream. There's no adrenaline in her system. There's no visible enemy. There's nothing she can do.

"Shindou-kun?" A startled voice says from behind her and she turns, meaning to face the speaker, but her eyes won't move from Nonoko. "What are you doing here?" She recognizes him – it's Takimoto, the severest teacher and teacher of advanced mathematical studies. Since most ninja hopefuls only learn rudimentary math, focusing instead on rhetoric and physical techniques and chakra, Takimoto has only one class rotation and often substitutes for sick teachers. His class, Naruto recalls, is somewhere in this hallway.

Seeing that she has no response, Takimoto makes a small dissatisfied noise and stalks through the doorway. "Go to my room and get the small red bottle in the second drawer on my desk and a water bottle from the closet." He pins down Nonoko's flailing arms, and when Naruto hesitates, barks, "Hurry!"

Naruto scampers out the door and down the hall. She doesn't remember where Takimoto's room is, but she finds a metal plate with the leaf insignia and "Takimoto-sensei" carved in it hung on a door three doors down the hall.

She bursts into the room. There are two students inside, working out of thick textbooks, and only one glances up at her when she runs to Takimoto's desk and begins opening his drawers. She finds the red bottle easily; it's a dark crimson that stands out against the pale brown wood of the drawers. The student watching her speaks up suddenly, startling her. "We're out of water," he says. "And all the water bottles are in the teachers' lounge. You'll have to go tell Takimoto-sensei that."

"What?" It takes her a second to process. The other student looks up from the textbook – math, Naruto can see the problems now.

"It's Nonoko-san, right?" The boy frowns and furrows his eyebrows. "You gotta feel sorry for her."

"Do you know what happened to her?" Naruto asks quickly.

He looks at her, and she looks right back at his eyes. "My mum said it's cause she mixed with the wrong sort," he said finally. "She got involved with the wrong people."

Naruto means to hold his gaze, but she can't. So she says to his shoes, "Thanks for letting me know."

When she runs into Nonoko's classroom again, Takimoto looks up and makes a little disappointed noise. "We're out of water, aren't we?" He asks, rhetorically. He stands and Nonoko quivers. "Come here, Shindou-kun. Make sure she doesn't hurt herself. I'll be back in a minute." Naruto rushes over to hold Nonoko's arms down, dropping the red bottle on a desk, and Takimoto leaves at a brisk walk.

Nonoko is murmuring to herself, talking in strange, halting tones. Naruto bends closer to hear and suddenly Nonoko is shouting again. "Hate!" she yells, and then quiets to a whimper, "I hate… you." She looks up blankly at the ceiling, her arms twitching, and says, "Naruto." Naruto's heart stills at her name, aloud in the air for the first time in years. "Naruto," Nonoko says again. Then, distinctly though painstakingly slowly, "it's all… your… fault."

The strength goes out of her arms.

"Why… me?" Nonoko cries. "I didn't… want… _this_."

Shindou fades, and all it leaves her with is Naruto and the tears. Except Naruto feels her world shaken. Naruto feels her sky falling. Because somewhere in her heart, Naruto always believed that Nonoko loved her.

Her tears fall on Nonoko's face, on her neck, on her hands. She drips. It's disgusting. She can't stop. She has food on her legs from when she dropped her tray. She's a mess.

She's a mess and Nonoko hates her.

Then Nonoko looks up again. Her eyes are grey, like steel, like bad weather coming. "No," she says. "No…I'm sorry." She stills, and her body stops convulsing. Naruto, head bowed, eyes closed against the tears, hearing her first teacher whisper brokenly and so softly it may just be her own imagination, "I love you, Naruto. I'm sorry. Stay safe."

Naruto does not hear Takimoto come back in with the water. She watches but does not see Nonoko swallow it obediently and go limp. She moves and goes to the bathroom to wash her face and clean herself up but she does not think. She does not know what to think. Naruto is afraid that if she thinks about what just happened, her barely mended world will break into pieces again.

It's easier to hold herself together by pretending nothing happened.

Naruto needs something to be easy.

* * *

But when is anything ever easy?

And is anything easy even worth it?

* * *

Iruka's palms sweat as he sits, tense and upright, in the chair by the hallway that leads to the Hokage's office. He is sure that the secretary is laughing at him in her head as she flips through what looks to be a fashion magazine. Some strange part of his mind provides Iruka with the information that all the _real _paper-pushers (of whose ranks Iruka was, for a short time, about to join) are housed elsewhere and this lady is probably some kind of high-ranking ninja pretending to be bored.

He still feels like she's laughing at him.

Finally – _finally, _footsteps sound out in the hallway, and an ornately dressed foreign-looking man walks in to the waiting room. He does not even spare Iruka a glance, but Iruka catches the way the ambassador's eyes stray to the woman, who is now twirling her hair coyly, and downward. "You can go in now," the secretary says.

Is that mirth in her voice?

Iruka almost runs out of the room. But then, realizing he is approaching the Hokage's office, he slows down and tries to compose himself. It's just a yearly meeting, after all. Iruka always had to hand in reports and go talk to somebody ranked high in the education ladder. He just has the fortune to meet with the Hokage this time, because his class is the "clan class" and their graduation is coming up in just six months. After a minute of too-fast breathing, he realizes it's not going to get better, swallows his heart, and opens the door.

The Hokage smiles benignly at him. "Iruka-san," he says, and his voice is warm. "Come in, sit. How are you? How are the kids treating you?"

Iruka smiles shakily. He sits. "I'm fine," he says. "The children are great, they're a joy to teach."

"Really? I must get you to teach Konohamaru's class, then," the Hokage says. Iruka's heart jumps in his throat again. "You'd surely change your mind. He's such a brat." The Hokage laughs to himself and shakes his head at the papers on his desk. Iruka laughs too, startled, and the sound of his laugh is squished and vaguely irritating, even to him, but he finds himself relaxing.

"Tell me about the children and how well they're learning," the Hokage finally speaks, after a moment of shuffling through the class portfolios – Iruka recognizes them. "I hear this year somebody managed to obtain the scholarship?"

Suddenly the doubts rise again. Iruka knows he's supposed to tell _somebody _about Shindou – no, that's not probably the girl's name – about her deception, but for some reason it feels like a secret he should keep.

Old loyalty rings out true.

"Actually, that's an interesting story," he says. "There's more to Shindou Toshiro than there seems to be, even at first glance…"

* * *

She opens the door to two familiar faces – one she sees every day, and one she never wished to see again.

"Naruto," the Hokage says.

There is nowhere to run.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Thanks to the lovely shewhoflies, my dedicated and amazing beta. And thanks to all the reviewers and favoriters and alerters, who daily remind me of this story. I could never hope to accomplish anything without you. (:

Do you have some time?  
A minute is fine.  
May I read your words,  
Now that you've read mine?  
I would love to  
Listen to you  
So please take a second  
And write a review.

_Liffae ^-~_


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